Home Building: Q+A with AIA President Shawn Evans
By Saguna Severson Feb 6, 2025, The Santa Fe New Mexican
This past January, the Santa Fe chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) gave out their design awards for 2024. There were eight winners overall, and, not insignificantly, about half of the 20 submissions were for single-family homes (three of which won). The national AIA boasts 100,000 members, and in Santa Fe, there are roughly 110 registered working architects. One of whom is Shawn Evans of MASS Design Group
and the chapter’s 2025 president. I spoke with Shawn just after the awards were announced.
How do the design awards reflect AIA Santa Fe’s mission?
AIA is a complex organization with national and state components that focus on the larger practice, and local components that are able to concentrate on how architecture might be different in their community. AIA’s mission across all of these geographies is “to create a more equitable, just, resilient, and healthy built environment.” Design award programs are held at all three levels of the organization and highlight projects that work toward these qualities while demonstrating excellence in design. Sustainable design is tremendously important of course. And Santa Fe has long been recognized as a hub for innovation in the environment. We were very blessed in Santa Fe to have had the headquarters of an organization called Architecture 2030 here, which helps architects understand how we can help, instead of harm, the Earth.
They have developed robust tools that help us evaluate our design practices to reduce energy demands and greenhouse gas emissions (both embodied and operational carbon) to slow climate change.
What’s the purpose behind the awards?
Architects are a force for good in the world and these award programs help demonstrate that to the public. We are acting to limit climate change and increase equity in the built environment, making sure that our public spaces, our civic spaces, our buildings, our housing, are all serving the broadest component of society. Not every architectural project directly addresses the public realm. Architects, particularly here in Santa Fe, design many single-family homes and spaces for small businesses, but all of our work should contribute to the important discussions about the visual identity of our city, and all of our built work impacts the planet.
The awards give us a way to demonstrate that we’ve been recognized by our professional peers. They’re judged by other architects from outside our own community. The award programs across the country serve to inspire the public about what is possible, what is necessary and where we architecture is heading. And we want our chapter—as all the chapters do—we want this to be a means of contributing to the discourse about the future of our community as well as the past.
So how does it work?
The past president of the local chapter identifies an architect from another city whom they admire – someone we think will understand the architecture of Santa Fe. They then assemble a group of their peers from their community. We send them the award submissions (26 this year), and they review the projects, discuss the functional and design objectives of each and select a group of projects that they find most inspiring.
It’s always fascinating to see what sparks their attention and what conclusions they draw regarding the issues at play in Santa Fe.
How do you define design?
There is much debate in the community about what “design” in architecture means. I’d like to see design understood much more broadly, to include planning and the wider range of services that architects provide.
Design is much more than aesthetics. As already mentioned, it includes issues such as sustainability, equity and preserving and perpetuating culture and nature. An important part of the discussion about architectural design in Santa Fe of course revolves around stewarding our traditional spaces and historic character. Our members are working with the community to probe more deeply into these questions. How do aspects of the past remain relevant and significant? Where in ourcity can contemporary buildings and spaces leave a history for our descendants to understand our current time? How do we modify our buildings to allow for the changing lives, needs and priorities? People change and our buildings need to as well. This is not a call for radical modern buildings – we are all deeply interested in balance.
Can you talk about the winners?
There were three single-family home winners this year. One was awarded for preservation—a modern passive solar house from the 1970s that the jury appreciated for the care demonstrated to steward this important period of residential innovation, particularly here in Santa Fe, one of the locations where passive solar really saw innovation, thanks to [2030 founder] Ed Mazria and many others who advanced the field.
The two new houses awarded are contemporary, one of them being John Barton’s Galisteo Street residence and studio. It’s very bold and playful with its take on traditional architecture. It’s located on the edge of the South Capitol neighborhood, a really interesting part of the city that has seen a lot of architectural innovation and variety. Santa Fe’s history and aesthetics is much more diverse than we market to tourists and I think it’s wonderful that there are architects who are exploring the space between the traditional and the contemporary.
Then there’s Thomas Gifford’s House 59. His practice does very high-quality, single-family homes. But they also work on a wide variety of building types, including some of my favorite affordable housing projects in the state, and their work is always beautifully detailed.
Autotroph was recognized for their design of “the Block,” a delightful community space in Rio Rancho constructed with shipping containers that includes a park, event space and food and dining. Autotroph has been proposing fun and thoughtful projects like this for over a decade. It’s wonderful to see this one come to life. It’s also great to see Santa Fe architects practicing in the Albuquerque metro area.
Historic preservation is a large part of the architectural practice here in Santa Fe and our awards often recognize important projects that steward our shared heritage. Woven Architecture’s beautiful restoration of the Historic Santa Fe Train Depot is a terrific example of this. No longer utilized as a passenger rail station, although it certainly serves the Railrunner, the renovations have been carefully planned to manage changes necessitated by new programs and functions that the visitor center demands.
We’re very excited as a chapter that we have some of the finest architects in the country practicing in traditional style, and others generating very contemporary buildings. Many architects do both equally well. This ability is necessary for our practice and for any city—to always wrestle with how the past and future meet. Especially this year, as we begin the next phase of work on the modernization of Santa Fe’s Land Development Code and General Plan. There are important parts of that code that deal with how aesthetics are encouraged and regulated, as well as sustainability requirements, which should be examined once every generation. We are eager to lead some of these discussions and look forward to hearing the voices of the community take a bigger role in these topics.
The Shoofly Pie project, which was one of two to receive the highest level of awards, is fascinating. It’s in a very small little pocket of Santa Fe—the Baca Railyard district, where there are, by design, significantly less restrictions on aesthetics. I see that neighborhood as almost a laboratory of design and programming. This particular project is a mixed-use building that combines multi-family housing with commercial spaces for the architectural firm that designed it, DNCA, as well as a wonderful art gallery. This is an example of the types of really fascinating projects where buildings can accomplish so much. Mixed-use buildings are wonderfully dynamic and help keep neighborhoods safe and lit and operating 24/7.
Two of the awards were given to projects of the firm that I help lead, MASS Design Group. We are a 501-c3 nonprofit design firm focused on affordable housing, tribal communities and food systems. Our vision plan for Reunity Resources, the community farm and environmental education organization on the Santa Fe River near San Ysidro Crossing, was recognized for its planning process. Our other award-winning project was Siler Yard, which is a project that I personally managed. I’m deeply honored that this work was recognized. This effort was an incredible partnership with the city, the state, Creative Santa Fe and New Mexico Inter-Faith Housing. My former firm, AOS Architects, began this project, and collaboratively designed it with da Silva Architecture and Trey Jordan Architecture, as well as with a group of 30 artists and creative professionals in Santa Fe.
We worked together to ensure that this place represented the interests of artists, resolved their needs and provided a place for them to collaborate and live in community. This project is energy net-zero and demonstrates that affordability and sustainability are not mutually exclusive. This spirit of collaboration is something Santa Fe could really benefit from: how architects with different strengths, philosophies and aesthetics can come together with the public to create places that can inspire and improve our diverse communities, while remaining true to the spirit of Santa Fe, which is far from static.
Do Santa Fe architects often find themselves competing with outside architects?
Although we’re a small city, Santa Fe has an extraordinarily complex history and we are a global destination for art and culture. Personally, I think it’s healthy to welcome other architects to practice here from time to time and show us maybe what we’ve been blind to, and where we have missed possibilities. Likewise, Santa Fe architects have much to offer other communities who are grappling with balancing heritage preservation with meeting the needs of their contemporary citizens.
Many of us would like to see more dialogue on this issue, and fewer lines in the sand, because architecture is not either traditional or innovative. All design projects are both traditional and innovative. While many lean in one direction or the other, architects and our clients are always discussing this spectrum for each project.
The great cities of the world are made of buildings that navigate this balance. They don’t always get it right, but they excite both locals and visitors in either the consistency or variety of the approach. This isn’t just the work of architects of course, it is the work of the communities who come together to chart their future.
What else do you hope to emphasize as AIA president?
One of the things I want to see us do, something we’re always talking about, what are the efforts we’re makng to attract the full spectrum of our population and our youth to our discipline? It’s important that when you look at the architects of Santa Fe, that they represent the population of Santa Fe, particularly in terms of life experiences and culture. My office is a collective of 13, including five Native American designers. That’s pretty profound as there are incredibly few Native architects in this country. In every project we do, we make a concerted effort, particularly with tribal communities, to hold workshops with youth so we can introduce them to this as a discipline. This is one of the things I love most about being an architect.
Has that tension between preserving the traditional with wanting to go more contemporary alleviated any?
I don’t think that challenge is diminishing at all. But it’s a natural process. We’re never going to find the answer. What’s important is that we keep asking questions.
Saguna Severson graduated with a BA in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, College of Environmental Design. After going off to study architecture in Japan, she moved to Santa Fe and has never looked back. Working first for Santa Fe architects, she then went for an MA in Counseling Psychology, and is now the Marketing Director at Tierra Concepts. She can be reached at: saguna@tierraconceptssantafe.com