PROfiles

>>> meet the designers behind projects featured in this issue

Lori Carroll, ASID, IIDA, Lori Carroll & Associates

Tucson interior designer Lori Carroll's career path was straight as an arrow from the time the Iowa native enrolled in the University of Arizona to study interior design. "I knew this was what I wanted to do," she says. She put herself through school by working at a local furniture store, then spent her senior year abroad, studying design at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. "What I learned there was the sense of pride in design Europeans seem to have. Things seem more permanent there." By the time she came back, Carroll passed her NCIDQ exams and launched her own firm at the tender age of 23. "I remember being scared," she recalls of her first project, a condominium interior, "but it went well." The rest is history, and Carroll has gone on to become known for her clean, elegant residential interiors that reflect Tucson's relaxed lifestyle, as well as for the numerous local, regional and national awards those projects have won. "I don't design for awards," she says. "I have a passion for design, so I keep upping the ante with each new project." We're featuring one of her award-winning Tucson homes in this issue.

Jeffrey Elliott, Jeffrey P. Elliott Interior Design

It's been a while since we caught up with Denver interior designer Jeffrey Elliott, whose residential project we featured on our July/August 2005 cover. "My career has gone into fast-forward," says Elliott, a Colorado native and graduate of the Interior Design Institute of Denver. "I've got two assistants now, and we're getting ready to move into a bigger space." Elliott, known for his detailed knowledge and use of vintage and antique furniture, has raised his design profile with numerous awards and accolades, including being named one of the "Top 25 New Designers in the Nation" by House Beautiful. One of Elliott's most recent residential projects, which has won an ASID Colorado First Place Award in the category of residential over 3,500 square feet, is featured in this issue. The home showcases 1940s-era furniture by designer James Mont. "He was the bad boy of the design world," Elliott says. "It's only been recently that people have been collecting his work."

Mark Kranz, AIA, LEED AP, SmithGroup

SmithGroup of Phoenix associate Mark Kranz was the perfect person to be the project designer for the U.S. Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center, which we feature in this issue. "I'm a farm boy from South Dakota," says Kranz. "I grew up in a small, rural community surrounded by barns. Going to Omaha or Minneapolis was a big deal when I was young." Kranz, however, opted not to go into agriculture, instead earning an undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Nebraska and a master's from Arizona State University, during which time he also started at SmithGroup in 1999. Kranz drew from his boyhood memories of "honest, utilitarian" farm structures for the design of the research center, which has won numerous design awards. He also memorized the 80-mile roundtrip drive from SmithGroup's downtown Phoenix offices to the center's rural site in Maricopa, Arizona. "I bet I drove out there more than 100 times."