Name: Adam Yarinsky, FAIA LEED AP
Firm: Architecture Research Office (ARO)
Family: Wife and two children, ages 13 and 17
Years in practice: 27 (21 with ARO)
Education: BS in Architecture, University of Virginia; M. Arch, Princeton University
Your first job: Raking leaves.
Project you’re proudest of: Most recently, the boat house we designed on the Hudson River in Beacon, New York. Having grown up in the Hudson Valley, it was especially satisfying to help connect people to the river, which is a national treasure.
What’s the best part of your job? I am always learning; almost every day presents new challenges and opportunities.
What’s the most annoying thing architects do? Behave with hubris, rather than humility.
What’s the next big architectural trend? Design for climate change resiliency.
The one thing you wish they’d teach you in school: Unlike my alma maters, many architecture schools do not have extensive offerings in architectural history. Knowledge of history is critical to shape an intellectual context with which to understand and respond to the present.
Architectural quote to practice by: All of Rafael Moneo’s “The Solitude of Buildings,” the address he gave on becoming Chair at Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1985.
Architect you’d like to have a drink with: Alvaro Siza
Favorite building: Kahn’s Exeter Library or the Kimbell Art Museum.
Favorite outdoor space: The Lawn at the University of Virginia
Favorite indoor space: The Pantheon, Rome
Favorite city: New York City
Favorite tool (can be digital, drafting, physical,…): My sketchbook.
Favorite architecture book: Spoken into the Void: Collected Essays 1897-1900 by Adolf Loos.
Best gift to give an architect: A book (even if it is not about architecture)!
If you hadn’t become an architect, what would you have been? Unhappy.
Meet the 2014 Design Awards Jury. Meet the 2014 YASC Jury.