I recently learned that a project that I worked on with my friend Julie Sanford back in 1994 has finally been built by the property owner, up in the northwest corner of Georgia near Lookout Mountain. As soon as I had the time I grabbed my parents and drove up and to see it in person. It’s a residence inn for hang glider pilots, which is the reason that the rooflets look like stacked hang glider sails.
And no, I would not ride one of those gliders for less than a million dollars.
Julie and I entered this project into the PA awards around 1994/95, but we did not win a prize or even an honorable mention.
The lead juror, Merrill Elam (Scoggin, Elam & Bray) later informed Julie that our project had been on the table until the very end but was ultimately disqualified due to a technicality. It turns out that the client’s daughter-in-law had entered her own design for the same project even though he had released her from the project and hired Julie. The jurors were confused when they were presented with two entries for the same piece of land and concluded that these designs were for some sort of competition, not design for hire. Needless to say thatwe were disappointed… but stuff happens.
Julie is an incredibly talented architect and I anticipate she’ll do very well for herself in the coming years.
