Seeing Architecture as a Continuum of Ideas

I met David Lake, a co-founder of the San Antonio and Austin-based architectural practice Lake|Flato, this spring under the most unusual circumstances. He was lying on his back on the floor of the entrance to I. M. Pei’s National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. With a camera in his hands, the architect was wholly preoccupied with taking pictures of the master’s beautiful concrete ceiling and seemingly ignoring other visitors. When I approached and commented on his extraordinary attention to detail, he exclaimed, “Don’t all architects do that?!”

Lake was in the capital to receive the 2024 AIA Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects for his and his partner Ted Flato’s commitment to “connect people to nature through restorative and sustainable strategies.” Their 150-person firm’s dwellings, schools, art centers, libraries, courthouses, and parks are known for responding to their place, environment, and culture in ways that are modern, authentic, and emotional. Glenn Murcutt called their architecture serene and joyous.

Austin native David Lake grew up at the far end of suburbia next to an undeveloped area where he spent much of his time outdoors — kayaking, sailing, hiking, and building tree houses, dugouts, and platforms with friends. He always wanted to build things and worked construction jobs in high school. His father, Frank Lake, was the Secretary of State of Texas in the early 1960s and later worked in private investment and real estate. His mother worked for the director of the Huntington Art Museum at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Among his parents’ friends were several prominent Texas architects, so pursuing architecture professionally was quite natural.

Lake graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1977, where he met his mentor, the pioneering architect O’Neil Ford, who brilliantly combined modernist and regionalist ideas. From 1978 he was on his own, running a design-build practice in the Texas panhandle, building experimental sodbusters and sod houses for farmers with his own hands. After completing a couple houses, he realized he needed more experience, so he went to work for his mentor and met his future partner there. He likened their encounter to “a juxtaposition of wills.” They had just the right amount of friction and competition to provoke collaboration. Lake told me, “At first, we did not see eye to eye. If I wanted round windows, Ted wanted square ones.” Soon, however, they realized they shared the same instincts; they believed in modernism and accentuated regionalist qualities.

David Lake (DL): First, we designed ranch houses 200-300 miles from metropolitan areas using materials that were close at hand. We had to build on a low budget, so we had to be very practical by learning from vernacular architecture throughout Texas. Fifteen years into our practice, we began to have opportunities to do more significant projects. So, we upscaled our original principles to designing high-performance buildings, searching for low-cost, gritty, rough-and-tumble practical solutions that are well-crafted, weather well, and get more beautiful over time. It was those early ranch houses that still inform our work today. I love tough and rugged buildings.

Pei’s gallery building is elegantly tough. Kimbell Art Museum by Kahn in Fort Worth is my favorite modern building. People don’t realize that Kay Kimbell's fortune was made, among many endeavors, by building warehouses, and he owned lots of concrete silos in North Texas. If you think about it, the museum looks like a series of silos on its side. However, Kimbell’s most essential feature is light and its quality; the building is shaped by natural light.

Part of an architect’s job is educating the owner, the contractor, and the user. For example, no one asks us to design high-performance buildings. But if we can educate our clients and prove that the initial investment will bring substantial savings in maintenance throughout the building’s life, they will do it. We try to bring everyone along when we develop our ideas. We also like designing different building types that fit well wherever they are built. Our buildings don’t travel well. We don’t recycle the same ideas or have a priori ideas about what our buildings should look like.

DL: One of our accomplishments is the firm itself; it is an excellent place to work. The other accomplishment is actively playing a role in land conservation here in Texas by setting aside and protecting well over 50,000 acres of habitat. Our ambition is to give back and preserve the spirit of the environment and ecology, create dynamic, inclusive communities, and, in that process, nurture local life. We don’t think it is enough for architects just to do their work. We engage in planning efforts for San Antonio and Austin. We link communities to open space and the healing power of nature. For example, we did ten H-E-B grocery stores. Most architects would never do that. But think about it — much of our time is spent in such places. A grocery store is inherently part of a community. One of these projects, when built, was the most efficient big box store in the country in terms of cost per foot to operate. It is gratifying to be able to make architecture for everyone; 10,000 customers a day shop at our store.

DL: Often, we team up with other architects. Right now, we are designing San Antonio Airport with Corgan. The main goal is to design an airport that feels like San Antonio. So, that’s where we started: What does San Antonio feel like? What is the culture, character, and spirit of San Antonio? How can we convey that in our project? Our approach was not to think about an impressive facade or a canopy but to create a linear park to evoke the River Walk. So, the first impression of coming to this airport is not a building but nature, greenery, and shade. This is how everyone will enter and exit our terminal. We use a timber frame to create a sense of warmth in this project. Instead of discussing ideas about this new building’s look, we talked about the experience. What should this building feel like to reflect all the qualities of San Antonio? 

In our other project, Pearl Brewery District, a mixed-use village and a social hub, the idea was to find what Downtown San Antonio was missing. We didn’t have a culinary district to attract restaurant-goers. That’s what led to the creation of a 26-acre urban assemblage of indoor and outdoor venues on a variety of scales and uses while interweaving street life, landscape, and commerce.

DL: Donald Judd is particularly influential. He was not a big fan of architects. [Laughs] In fact, he did not like the Kimbell and scoffed at Kahn’s incapacity as an architect! But his beautiful concrete cubes in Marfa, Texas, resonate with me. They make you think about sunlight and space in ways that are quite fascinating. I love his approach to furniture and aesthetics, simplicity, clarity, and tactile spirit. What we do as architects is so hard. It requires so many hands and minds of so many designers, craft people, technical people, and so many others, all moving together with the contractor to accomplish a result that is spirited, aspirational, beautiful; intrinsically of its place, climate, and culture; and everlasting. We care so much, and we try to learn as much from other architects as we can. That’s why I was on the floor on my back, looking up! [Laughs]

All civic buildings should be concerned with such questions as: Am I a good neighbor? What do I contribute to the neighborhood? Do I make a city a better place? All buildings should go beyond their immediate functions. Architecture is about creating a better place. Architects, together with engineers and scientists, can help nurture the environment. We must commit rigorously to innovation and technology while making welcoming places.

DL: I think we should treat every program as an opportunity. So often, a program deals only with planning some areas and rooms instead of asking such questions as what the whole program aspires to become. Are we missing an opportunity to rethink a program to include things that may be overlooked and not addressed? Imagine taking a program and injecting life and opportunity into it! When we did Austin Library, we asked whether it was just a repository for books or if it should become Austin’s living room. By deciding to create Austin’s living room, we set aside spaces for families, teenagers, and kids, all planned, scaled, colored, and textured differently to convey a sense of comfort, security, and urbanity. In the end, we created a succession of living rooms. None of that was in the program. It was our job to interpret the program and create opportunities.

DL: This is an interesting observation. The Pantheon is still my favorite building. I lay on the floor there, too, and look through the oculus as the clouds pass. [Laughs.] That was one of my inspirations when I built my early adobe houses. When you go into an adobe house, it immediately feels different — the thickness of the walls, the weight, the acoustics, the cooling and heating. I recall O'Neil Ford saying he had never seen a barn he didn’t like. They are lightweight, quickly built, and sometimes built by communities like shaker barns; they are shaped by purpose. There is something beautiful about warehouses’ and barns’ clarity of purpose and economy of means.

I also like light wooden structures. I remember visiting the stave churches in Norway and old temples in Japan; their means are modest but they are beautifully crafted and spatially perfect. I also love Glen Murcutt’s very delicate structures, with their exquisitely detailed hovering roofs. And he is a brilliant ecologist. His buildings make the least possible impact on the land. They feel they can take off and land elsewhere, leaving the site as before. There is a poetic beauty in that idea. That’s why I love adaptive reuse. That’s an opportunity — letting old buildings tell us new ways that can be expressed in the old buildings. Spaces that evolve from repurposing are incredibly beautiful.

O’Neil Ford had a photo of an altar from Machu Picchu. He used to say, “If you can design a building as beautiful as a ruin, you have accomplished something.” He admired vernacular architecture and called himself a “pre-modern architect.” He believed that architecture without pretense was more honest and rooted in place. He was preoccupied with adapting architecture to a place, thinking about how to passively interact with climate and to make it comfortable. How do you bring light, air, breezes, and comfort into buildings passively? If you can make a building open and close to the weather, you can connect people viscerally to the place. One of our most significant contributions is that we elevated the porch to be one of the most essential rooms in every one of our buildings, whether it is a house, a library, or a sports arena.

DL: I think many architects are confused about their role. Many focus on sculptural qualities. I don’t think sculpture is what’s needed. Being artfully practical means making shelter in a variety of ways for a variety of purposes that serve an ever-increasing number of communities. But if we focus on getting a perfect sculpture built, not only will the layperson not understand it, but I don’t think it will make a lasting impact. We have to serve a broader purpose. Buildings can be visually interesting but think of the cost to the environment of those gratuitous cantilevers and excessively sculpted facades. To achieve that, you need to place a lot of extra structure, and then you need to add a lot of extra layers of heating and cooling. Being artfully practical means you have to balance art and architecture with performance, aspirations, and place to make buildings and places that others can learn from. It also means stretching resources and getting the most out of those resources while still being aspirational.

Of course, you need to be aspirational; how dull would life be otherwise!? I still remember what O’Neil Ford once said to me, “You will never design something as beautiful as a tree. So, stop trying!” It was his way of saying — stop trying to create something sculptural and extraneous. How can you do something simple and beautiful? That’s what it means to be artfully practical to Ted and me. That’s why we resonate with one another. We share that instinct, and it’s been a hell of a journey — constantly redefining and refining our approach. I can’t imagine doing architecture without a partner. Architecture is a team sport. I see architecture as a continuum of ideas.