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By Ingrid Spencer

www.peg-ola.com Click for a slide show of images.

Ann Arbor, Michigan, a breeding ground for talented young architects? Not only does this month's featured Design firm hail from there, but so do two practices introduced in archrecord2 in 2002 (IS.Ar Iwamoto Scott Architecture, in April, and PLY Architecture + Design, in August) and a record Design Vanguard firm from 2005 (Mitnick Roddier Hicks).

The initials in the firm name PEG office of landscape + architecture stand for “Post Euclidean Groove”—in the spirit of Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck’s theories of 2D rational thinking about Modernism in a Euclidean groove. The firm’s three principals, Keith Vandersys, Karen M’Closkey, and collaborating partner Jeff Sharpe (pictured, left to right), didn’t expect to end up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “I was born and raised in Michigan,” says Vandersys, “and although I’ve spent the past 10 years trying to get away, the place seems to lure me back.” Call it fate and the power of a great architecture school—the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, where Vandersys is a lecturer and M’Closkey an assistant professor. For M’Closkey, the lure was especially strong. After receiving her B.Arch. at SCI-Arc and her master’s degree in landscape architecture at Harvard’s GSD, she applied for and was given a tenure-track position at the University of Michigan. “It was such a great opportunity,” she says, “and the fact that we can do real work while being a part of the university is ideal. It means we’re always in conversation.”

For the partners and their four-person firm, putting theory into practice in a place with opportunity has resulted in a growing roster of clients. “Because we do both architecture and landscape design, many of our clients are architects,” says M’Closkey. “We’re interested in doing work at a variety of scales,” says Vandersys, “and here we’ve found interesting architect clients who understand what we’re talking about. It’s a ‘negotiation of expertise.’ ”

Vandersys says they acknowledge the differences between interior and exterior environments, but their approach to both is similar: It isn’t all about getting people outside, but on how clever spatial relationships between outdoor spaces and architecture can be achieved. He calls their style “saturated Minimalism.”

With several projects of various scales and scopes under their belts in Michigan, the firm is branching out—especially on the landscape architecture side of their business—in such places as Texas, South Carolina, and Ohio. The partners want to grow the firm to eight to 10 people, yet they can’t see giving up small projects, or hands-on involvement. “We like making things,” says Vandersys, “and we want to participate in projects at a variety of scales, not just direct or manage them.”