JOYCE OWENS ARCHITECTUREJOYCEOWENS.COM

Joyce Owens is a well-seasoned architect, but her design process has not changed much since her early days. She still relies on paper and pencil to develop her parti for any project, but she now also incorporates computeraided design (CAD) software. Earlier in her career, when Joyce worked for another company, a real estate developer hired her to design a high-end spa in the Bahamas. The spa was meant to feel subtly luxurious with nature at the forefront. The idea was not just to emphasize nature in the academic sense, but more about holistically integrating the spa into nature. The clients wanted the spa to come from the earth, possibly even creating treatment rooms over the water, as if they had just gurgled to the surface.

With this in mind, Joyce set out to design the spa, starting with the parti. Joyce explains that “parti means something very particular for an architect—it is the big idea behind what you are building. The parti is not a drawing; instead, it is the architect’s perception of a project. The drawing is the way the architect communicates their parti, and whether it is hand drawn or computer generated is immaterial, as those are merely tools. And, like everything, if you have a strong parti, then all the subsequent decisions will reinforce that concept.” Joyce’s initial hand-drawn sketch is a result of her parti, and as the design develops her sketches get more detailed.

Joyce created an eco-spa oasis by designing a series of smaller structures with adjoining courtyards, instead of housing all the treatment rooms in one building. The single-story bungalows had big sliding-glass doors, designed to be opened all the time, that led to the outside. Although Joyce could not bring the spa into the water due to environmental regulations, she was able to bring the water to the spa by creating little man-made lagoons that surrounded the treatment rooms.

Joyce’s parti process entails multiple sketches until she has a strong and clear idea about the layout. She is designing in 3D even when she is drawing the site plan. Conceptually, everything is in her head, but she still needs to draw it out to make sure it works within the required dimensions. “I am already beginning to see the layout as I look at the land,” she explains, “and once I get a handle on that phase, I can move on to the more complicated drawings.” Her design/drawing process uses a combination of tools. She starts with hand drawing because it allows her to design while she sketches. She then inputs the design to the computer for scale, and draws on top of the printout for more detail and animation. Today’s younger architects are well versed in CAD and use it as their tool of choice. But Joyce encourages her designers to keep up with hand sketching. It is quicker and far more encompassing than the computer when trying to generate ideas.

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Architecture Joyce Owens

Joyce Owens

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