PROfiles

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

Klea Jones, IIDA

Klea Jones knows the ins and outs of model-home merchandising — she's been doing it for some 25 years. "You know your neighborhood, you know your target market and make the interior appeal to them," explains the principal of Jones Design Group, located in Broomfield, Colorado. "You also learn you can do a model home in 29 days, start to finish." The Idaho native and graduate of Denver's Art Institute of Colorado also knows a few tricks of the trade: "You never give model-home visitors a chance to open, eat, light or take something. The glue gun is our friend." Nonetheless, when the chance to do something a bit different came along in 2003, she went for it. "My then-partner and I were hired to redesign the entry, administration areas and gift shop for the Denver Zoo," she explains. "We decided to present it as a sustainable project." Her first foray into green interior design was a crash course, and it left her with a passion for the subject. When another sustainable project came along, Jones and her design team gladly took on the challenge. "Green interiors are still a process," she notes. "Just a few years ago, there weren't many products available." Jones' very green model, designed for Denver's RiverClay condominiums, is featured in this issue.

David Michael Miller, ASID

You can't really tie interior designer David Michael Miller to any one particular style. His concrete, steel and glass office in downtown Scotts­dale, Arizona is a study in Minimalist cool. He's done Spanish Colonial so well you'd think you were in San Miguel de Allende. For a recent project, he adopted the best of English cottage design — even visiting the British countryside for inspiration — and tastefully translated it for the Arizona desert. Since he launched his own firm, David Michael Miller Associates, in 1989, he's designed scores of award-winning residential projects, no two alike but all linked by his discerning eye for everything from the right shade of paint to the best scale for the living room furnishings. A recent reno­vation project in Phoenix led him in yet another direction, style-wise. "The clients wanted a contemporary interior," explains Miller, whose roots are in Chicago, "but the home had a Southwest-Mediterranean architecture. There was no denying it. We worked from that point on." Miller's results are featured in this issue's "Residential Walk-Through."

Randy Spitzmesser, AIA, LEED AP

When we caught up with architect Randy Spitzmesser, principal with Tate Snyder Kimsey in Henderson, Nevada, he was in the midst of making some occupants happy at one of his most recent projects. It seems they were wanting more privacy. The occupants? Bats. The project? The Origen visitors' complex at Las Vegas Springs Preserve, a Tate Snyder Kimsey sustainable design that's garnering awards and recognition. "The project has been very pop­ular," explains Spitzmesser, a native of Texas, "and the bat exhibit gets busloads of school kids, so we're working with the biologists to give the bats more enclosures." Spitzmesser happily traded a tractor for architecture, bats and all, when he was making career choices out of high school. "I operated heavy equipment for a contractor," he recalls, "and I had a basketball scholarship. When I saw people working in an air-conditioned architecture studio, I decided that was a better choice than driving a tractor in the hot sun." He studied at Texas State College, then worked for a developer in Albuquerque, New Mexico before landing at Tate Snyder Kimsey in 2000, where he's shep­herded numerous projects to fruition. "The Las Vegas Springs Preserve is definitely one of my most memorable projects," he says. It's one of our featured green projects in this issue.