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Burton Baldridge Architects: |
What is an architect to do when he wants complete control over the construction and details of every project he designs? Start his own construction company, of course! At least, that was the answer for Burton Baldridge, principal of three-year-old, Austin, Texas, design firm Burton Baldridge Architects and construction firm BBA-DB. “I like the close connection to the project from concept to delivery,” he says about his decision to run two companies simultaneously, “and I hate to see details beaten out of projects.” For Baldridge (center in photo, top left, flanked by senior designer/project managers Shawn Brown, at left, and Ted Slate, at right), complete participation means either doing things himself or finding and establishing solid relationships with the right people to see his visions through.
Mohle Drive Residence, Austin, 2007
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Baldridge credits his former boss of more than five years, New York architect Peter Gluck, for teaching him how to successfully juggle the two firms. “I learned everything from Peter,” he says. Well, not everything. For Baldridge, the path to finding his true passion was a meandering one. The journey took him from Fort Worth (first 11 years), to Midland, Texas (“I hated it; I begged to go to boarding school somewhere else”), to New Jersey (boarding school), then to Austin, where he studied architecture, finance, and finally law at the University of Texas at Austin. “I always wanted to be an architect,” he says, “but I also always wanted to be a lawyer.” He moved to New York and worked as an attorney, then “realized I didn’t want to be a lawyer.” Back to architecture, Baldridge earned his master’s degree at Columbia University. “I didn’t sleep for three years in New York,” he says. During his tenure there, he worked for various firms (KPF, Studio Sofield, Deamer Phillips, a+i design corp), finally finding the right fit as project architect for Peter L. Gluck and Partners. When a complicated high-end residential project in Austin called Floating Box was stalled in the design phase, Baldridge asked Gluck if he could come to Austin to see it through as on-site construction manager for Gluck’s construction company, AR|CS Architectural Construction Services. “Peter is a real missionary,” says Baldridge about his mentor, confessing that both Gluck and he knew that he would stay in Austin and become a solo practitioner when the house was finished. “He encourages people to go where they can do the best work.” Baldridge moved to Austin, and for the next three years worked exclusively on the house, which ultimately won several design awards.
Baldridge agrees that managing the construction of Floating Box was going headfirst into the deep end. After that project, he made the decision to keep swimming, and hasn’t stopped. His calling card could be the unabashedly Modern and exquisitely detailed home he built for himself and his wife — a broadcast journalist — and two young children, or maybe it’s Kimber Modern, a high-end bed-and-breakfast in Austin’s hip South Congress district that any rock star would be proud to call home for a few days. He’s got more houses on the boards and a quirky burger joint prototype that will, fingers crossed, become a nationwide chain. There’s also pro bono work for a local elementary school, as well as furniture designs, and the dream to start doing competitions. “There is a sort of karmic balance,” says Baldridge about his career path and success. “We have worked hard and have sought to be decent to everyone, and it has just sort of worked out.”
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