building on the legacy of paul rudolph and ralph twitchell, guy peterson refreshes florida's mid-century modernism with a calm, cool touch.

Source: residential architect Magazine
Publication date: 2007-07-01

By Cheryl Weber

The Tamiami Trail rolls south from Tampa, Fla., passing through downtown Sarasota's thriving theater and arts district before continuing along the Gulf of Mexico and cutting east to Miami. Guy Peterson's office sits in the middle of Sarasota's creative hub—just blocks from Sarasota Bay, with its string of resplendent keys. His one-story white stucco building has a shot of chartreuse marking the entryway, and inside, a conference room's white walls, terrazzo floor, and translucent glass doors are a striking backdrop for Peterson's work. A “drumroll wall” slides from its slot, bearing a collage of elevations from the Houses of Indian Beach, a coastal infill community that will contain 23 Peterson-designed homes. On another wall are mounted two huge color renderings on yellow trace—presentation drawings for a current project—and opposite that, a grid of four John Pawson staircase sketches—a gift from his wife, Cynthia. Scattered about are models of lithe houses with geometric cutaways, serene courtyards, and glass curtain walls. Peterson's office suits his practice, which exudes a minimalist aesthetic softened with a subtropical vernacular.

Born in Cheyenne, Wyo., Peterson, FAIA, was an infant in 1954 when his parents moved to Sarasota, where a group of architects had famously come together to debate the tenets of the International Style. The regional modernist movement known as the Sarasota School of Architecture was in full bloom, led by the legendary Paul Rudolph. (Rudolph's 1953 Umbrella House still stands—sans umbrella—on nearby Lido Shores.) If anyone comes to modern architecture honestly, it's Peterson, for his earliest memories are rooted in the area's landmark modernist buildings. He attended Alta Vista Elementary School, which has an addition designed by Sarasota School architect Victor Lundy, FAIA; Brookside Junior High, which was designed by Ralph and William Zimmerman; and Riverview High School, Rudolph's second public building. Peterson's father, a physician, practiced in a Zimmerman office building. His family joined The Field Club—a yachting club with building additions designed by Edward J. “Tim” Seibert, FAIA—and his parents were friends with Seibert and Jack West, AIA. “I wasn't part of the Sarasota School of Architecture,” Peterson explains, “but it was part of me growing up.”

Guy Peterson relaxes in front of a privacy wall that takes its color cue from the ceiling of Twitchell/Rudolph's Revere Quality House, which he restored (see image gallery). Photo: Ryan K. Morris / WpN RA070701044L2.jpgCLICK TO VIEW IMAGE GALLERY

Sarasota's balmy breezes and sparkling beaches have long attracted wealthy homeowners, and newcomers continue to flock to the Gulf Coast—almost 1,000 a month to Sarasota County alone, according to the latest University of Florida figures. When it comes to new custom homes, exorbitant land prices have made the modest scale of those mid-20th-century gems obsolete. Today's dwellings are exponentially larger to justify the cost of the property they sit on. Weather patterns over the last 50 years have also tweaked the modernist landscape. The classic vocabulary of concrete and steel construction, floating overhangs that provide passive heating and cooling, and direct indoor-outdoor relationships still suits this near-tropical climate. But the hurricanes that regularly pummel the coast are shifting the building codes as swiftly as the shoreline.

“Every time there's a big hurricane, the codes change,” Peterson says, noting that Katrina's fallout is still to come. “It's challenging to get the transparency you want—to afford impact-resistant glass, because it's so expensive, but also because hurricane codes limit glass sizes. If you look at the influences of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, Mies' work is more transparent with structure and glass; Le Corbusier's work is more about integrating mass and structure. Our work is more in the Le Corbusier vein and not as transparent, exploring how to express both skin and structure at the same time.” Building on barrier islands or seaward of Florida's Coastal Construction Control Line adds another layer of design constraints. For example, homes must be built above the wave crest of a 100-year storm, which can be 19 feet above sea level in some zones, and must limit light emissions and glare to protect nesting sea turtles.

Peterson has never been interested in copying these icons; he'd rather build on them—sometimes literally. Site and zoning constraints and a prime waterfront location presented some puzzling scale issues on his recent addition to the 1,000-square-foot Revere Quality House, a Ralph Twitchell/Paul Rudolph creation on Siesta Key, for example. FEMA codes required the new structure's lowest floor to be 8 feet above grade, which put it awkwardly on level with the Revere House's roof. Peterson's solution—meant to preserve its low profile, yet support the cost of the lot—was to create a two-building compound. He faithfully restored the Revere House, now reconceived as a pool cabana or guest quarters, and added a pool on axis with its covered patio. Meanwhile, setback lines forced the new 4,700-square-foot structure onto a rear sliver of the lot, resulting in a long linear house that sits perpendicularly to the old one. Peterson rotated it slightly off axis to engage the Revere House across a courtyard and added a planted patio underneath to preserve the Revere House's sight lines. Sections of the wall directly adjacent to the dainty lower house are opaque, so the occupants don't look down on its roof.

In contrast to the neutral colors of the new stucco, ipe, and glass structure, Peterson pulled the Revere House's saturated colors into the landscape with peacock blue and rust red walls and with a lemon yellow pool perch. “Guy has built on Paul Rudolph's work in its simplicity and almost Mondrianesque geometry,” says retired Atlanta architect Lewis Nix, FAIA, who joint-ventured with Peterson on the Sarasota Memorial Hospital Critical Care Center. “He's been able to translate a lot of Rudolph's theory into much larger structures. He's also extremely easy to work with. He sticks to his guns but wins people over with his talent and calm, reassuring attitude.”

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios A vacation home on Manasota Key reflects Peterson's interest in articulating the space between buildings.

Peterson credits Harry Merritt, his master's thesis chairman at the University of Florida in Gainesville, for helping him develop a modernist attitude. “He taught me about the space outside the house and between elements of architecture,” Peterson says, “and that the sequence of moving through space is a process—an event you set up from beginning to end. I've carried that with me and still look at it like music. There's something lyrical about architecture if you approach it that way.”

Peterson has lived virtually his entire life in Florida, but it took him 20 years to return to Sarasota full time. After finishing graduate school in 1978, he went to work for Barrett Daffin & Carlin, a large architecture and engineering firm in Tallahassee. There he met Ivan Johnson, AIA, who headed up the architecture division, and in 1980 the two formed Johnson Peterson Architects. “He was 10 years older and had good contacts,” Peterson says of the union. Working from their Tallahassee office, the partners garnered a statewide reputation and numerous design awards for project types ranging from residential to state and government buildings. Around 1984, when Sarasota School architect Jim Holliday became terminally ill, Holliday and his son Michael asked for help running their Sarasota practice. After the elder Holliday's death, the three architects joined up as Johnson Peterson Holliday, splitting their time between Tallahassee and Sarasota. During Peterson's frequent trips to the Sarasota office, he felt the pull of his hometown, and when Michael Holliday, AIA, decamped to California in 1989, Peterson moved back to Sarasota to run the Johnson Peterson satellite. Eleven years later, he split to start his own firm, Guy Peterson/Office for Architecture. “By then our offices were operating completely independently and I was tired of public work,” Peterson says. “I was emerging as a different kind of practice, and I gutted and rebuilt the office to reflect my new identity.”

Around that time, two substantial commissions helped him focus his energies on houses. Both projects offered him creative license to develop his interest in light and shadow, color, and the quality of space between buildings. One was a 10,000-square-foot house overlooking Sarasota Bay near the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport. Impeccably proportioned and detailed, it features nine shades of white and a three-story structural curtain wall of blue-tinted soundproof glass. An interior vaulted gallery connects two cubes—the main house and guesthouse—that are carved away to create view corridors.

Peterson's parents were also gracious patrons, hiring him to design a new home on the Oyster Bay property where he grew up. “Mom always loved modern architecture, and Dad likes to say that Mom was the only person he ever met who could exceed an unlimited budget,” Peterson laughs. That job coincided with work on the Sarasota Memorial Hospital Critical Care Center, and the two ventures crystallized his priorities. “The hospital project took five years; meanwhile, I realized I could really wrap my arms around these smaller projects,” he says. “Plus I had an opportunity to work with the end users, not a team of committee members.”

Whether presenting to a committee or a private client, the level of rigor and invention is the same. In addition to learning as much as he can about the owner and site, Peterson asks to see examples of things they don't like. “If they just show you things they like, they expect to see that,” he says. “I'm not here to draw up what they've already seen, and I don't want to be prejudiced by that.” He begins his design process with loose pencil sketches—abstract perspectives and elevations, which gradually develop into elaborate color renderings on yellow trace that will be the clients' first glimpse of his ideas. “When I'm presenting to a client, in my mind I'm still presenting to a jury of faculty,” he says. “They're going to chew me up and throw this back at me if I can't defend myself. I try and take it to a level where I have it well-resolved, and that's proven to be a very successful approach.”

Though house commissions—about 20 at a time—keep Peterson's five-person firm busy these days, there's always at least one commercial project on the boards. Currently under way is Fruitville Forum, a retail center on the edge of downtown Sarasota, and the headquarters for Tempra Technology, a research company developing food containers that heat and cool themselves. Other recent commercial projects have included a restaurant on St. Armand's Key and the LEED-certified council headquarters for the Girl Scouts of Gulfcoast Florida. In an effort to keep learning, Peterson's entire staff is pursuing LEED AP certification. Cynthia Peterson, who has long overseen the office finances, is currently at Boston's Simmons College studying to be a certified archivist specializing in architecture. She'll then use those skills “to catalog and preserve our work,” Peterson explains. “Figuring out how to document and provide access to all the hand drawings, models, and photos is a mind-boggling assignment.”

The Houses of Indian Beach—his first foray into development—is another project that's pushing the boundaries of his practice. Peterson and three other developers purchased eight wooded acres on Sarasota Bay, near the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, that will hold 23 homes ranging in size from 2,300 square feet to 4,700 square feet. Variously clad in materials such as concrete, stucco, black-stained cypress, marine plywood, and Cor-Ten steel, each home is a set piece designed for its particular site and the house next to it. When a lot is sold, owners can choose to build the house for that site or have Peterson custom-design an alternative. Despite Sarasota's current glut of subdivision homes, Peterson says his niche is solid. “With Sarasota's history of Modernism, a lot of people here view architecture as art and as an investment in something special. It's not safe, like the imitation Mediterranean Revival style that's driven by Realtors, but it's a strong market.”

Extracurricular activities—from lectures at the University of Florida School of Architecture and membership on its advisory committee to work with the AIA Florida Foundation for Architecture and the Sarasota Architectural Foundation—leave little room for downtime. His top priority right now is to save the Rudolph-designed main building at Riverview, which is slated for demolition to make way for a new high school unless preservationists can find a compatible use for the building—and the funds to renovate it. “We've got everyone from AIA Florida to Charles Gwathmey, FAIA, and Lord Norman Foster helping us,” Peterson says. The school is also featured in <i>Site Specific: The History of Regional Modernism</i>, a film that will travel around the country this fall in a lecture series by <i>Metropolis</i> editor in chief Susan Szenasy.

Meandering along the sun-drenched streets of Siesta Key, Lido Key, and Bird Key, making stops to admire the rhythm of Royal Palm trunks outside a spare courtyard or the play of light through steel staircase treads on a stucco wall, it's impossible not to adopt Peterson's enthusiasm for architecture stripped to its purest essence. “Architecture should make you think about your environment,” he says. “I'd rather have someone not like my work than not notice it.”

Each client, he continues, “has a new energy and creativity demand. The biggest challenge is to take all that and keep reinventing where we're going with our language. I'm trying to make things as simple as I can, using honest materials and creating space that's about light and form, and not being seduced by stylistic fashions.”

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios With the addition of a pool and monolithic seating platform, the 1948 Twitchell/Rudolph creation became a pool house for the new perpendicular home. FEMA codes required the new house to float about eight feet above grade, but stucco and ipe walls block direct views of the original home's roof. The light, open kitchen spills out to a terrace.

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios The Revere Quality House

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios The Revere Quality House

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios The Bird Key house has a strong horizontal layout, enabling sweeping views of the mainland and the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane-resistant translucent glass affords some privacy, eliminating the need for window treatments. Each level—public areas and master suite on the main floor, guest rooms and study above—extends out to covered plazas.

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios The Bird Key house

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios The Bird Key house

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios A vacation home on Manasota Key reflects Peterson's interest in articulating the space between buildings. Three linked pavilions organize the house's guest and private quarters.

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios The orange cube's roof holds a private garden outside the master suite and library. Peterson's simple geometric scheme unfolds within a concrete pavilion and 18-foot column spacing.

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios A common seashell inspired the colors of this Gulf-front house on Siesta Key. Each colored “cube” defines a different function—purple for entertaining, orange for the children's wing, ochre for family living, and white for shared activities such as dining and exercise.

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios Siesta Key house

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios Siesta Key house

Photo: Steven Brooke Studios Siesta Key house