ALUM NI
Designing CULTURE At Carrier Johnson + CULTURE, Gordon Carrier, B.S. ’79, M.Arch ’81, says understanding the heart of a client lies at the heart of good design
AS A CHILD GROWING UP in Mt. Morris, just north of Flint, Michigan, Gordon Carrier regularly passed a one-of-a-kind yellow house while biking to town center. As it turns out, that house belonged to a local architect. “I remember I admired this house, as it was unlike any other in the neighborhood,” says Carrier, B.S. ’79, M.Arch ’81. “However simplistic, it was my first exposure to the power architecture can have on an individual.” Today, as design principal of Carrier Johnson + CULTURE (headquartered in San Diego), Carrier is drawn to the search for unique architectural outcomes through research-based client engagement — not to elicit a design “wow” factor but to reveal the genuine spirit of a specific client’s need. “If we successfully discover that which is unique about our client, i.e., their CULTURE, how could the resultant building solution resemble any other?” he says. Carrier believes an organization’s CULTURE defines its unique offering and spends concentrated time revealing
his clients’ project desires, while continually assessing and tuning the CULTURE inside the firm. It’s also why Carrier and his partner, Michael Johnson, added “+ CULTURE” to their firm’s name in 2007: the word represents their passion to pursue that which represents the unique in a given commission. “We don’t believe powerful design solutions derive from collateral design elements like style, material, furniture systems, or an interesting form viewed in isolated fashion,” Carrier says. “Rather, we believe strong design reveals itself through identifying and leveraging an organization’s CULTURE, no matter the client. This is what sets every client, firm, and organization apart. We have to find it.” That approach has been highly successful in San Diego and elsewhere. Carrier Johnson + CULTURE has long been recognized as a leading architectural firm in San Diego and has additional footprints in New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Aside from its west coast influences, Carrier Johnson + CULTURE’s design team has planned and designed developments in the United Arab Emirates, China, Costa Rica, Korea, Vietnam, and Africa, including hotels, corporate headquarters, exhibition facilities, and urban mixed-use developments. Carrier Johnson + CULTURE’s work has been featured in numerous publications, including Architectural Record, and it is a perennial part of Building Design + Construction Magazine’s Giants 300 Report, Architect Magazine’s Architect Top 50 list, and ENR’s Top Design Firms. The firm and its design principals have received more than 210 awards for design excellence in architecture, interior design, and sustainable design. Most recently, two projects have garnered significant praise: the Point Loma Nazarene University Science
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SPRING 2020 TAUBMAN COLLEGE
