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De Leon + Primmer Architecture |
A flurry of recent commissions validated the decision of De Leon + Primmer Architecture’s principals to return to Louisville, Kentucky after relocating to Charlotte, North Carolina. Often referred to as a “boomerang town,” a place from which people leave, then feel compelled to return to, Louisville proved to have the right combination of open mindedness with a somewhat undefined identity, which the principals believe gives them opportunity to develop new ideas. After trying out Las Vegas, where they ran the design office for a large engineering firm, and Charlotte, “friends and clients kept calling us back to Louisville,” says L. Ross Primmer, principal.
Yew Dell Gardens, Crestwood, Kentucky, 2006.Based on what you have seen and read about this project, how would you grade it? Use the stars below to indicate your assessment, five stars being the highest rating.
For Primmer and Roberto de Leon selecting an accessible and emerging market was an essential decision in their careers. As graduates of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, while most of their peers were planning to stay in Boston or move to New York, Primmer researched emerging markets—“smaller cities that were transitioning from industrial to service-based economies,” he says. He believed such a market would allow them greater access to the kinds of projects that interested them. “We wanted to work in a community where we could have an impact.”
After working for Bravura, a well regarded mid-sized regional firm, Primmer and de Leon decided to open an office together. “We were each other’s best critic,” Primmer says. They quickly developed a reputation for working well with non profits and arts groups, figuring out ways to get the most out of limited budgets and commonplace materials. “There are not a lot of high-end retail spaces or sleek bars in this market,” de Leon says, “so we have to find other kinds of clients, and we ended up with the kind we really wanted.” After returning to the city, the firm recently completed a multi-purpose building for Yew Dell Gardens, a non profit horticultural education center outside Louisville. They renovated a mid 20th-century kit barn from Sears Roebuck, and added a contemporary addition using traditional tobacco barn builders. Emphasizing the need for collaboration and consensus building, Primmer underscores the importance of learning to work with non profit boards of directors. “You have to be an advocate for the cause as well as a steadying presence because many boards have a quick turnover,” he says.
Current projects include a master plan for Yew Dell, a pavilion at Louisville’s Waterfront Park, serving as co-lead designers for a new park overlooking the Ohio River in the southwestern section of the city, in addition to residential projects and a new live/work building that will house their office, a workshop, and apartments. The live/work building draws on the warehouses, Nineteenth-century brick commercial buildings, and shotgun houses that surround the site.
Though they recently hired three interns, two recent graduates from University of North Carolina at Charlotte and one from the University of Kentucky, de Leon and Primmer plan to maintain a small office, with a maximum of around 10 people. “We want the office to continue to be very hands on,” De Leon says, “we always want to maintain a sense of intimacy with the work, to maintain the rigor.”
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