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I t is all too rare for a young design and research firm to build a significant body of work in a relatively short time (15 years), turning the corner from houses and shops or restaurants to large commercial projects. Needless to say, a female single proprietor accomplishing all of this is rarer still. Yet it can happen, as Jennifer Luce, AIA, the principal of Luce et Studio of San Diego, refreshingly demonstrates.
This year alone the Luce office completed a 45,000-square-foot automotive design studio building for Nissan Design America in Farmington Hills, Michigan, outside of Detroit, along with a 65,000- square-foot renovation of Nissan Design America in La Jolla, California. Both projects attest to the range of design abilities of the 7-person firm, beginning with rethinking the program. "We analyzed Nissan's process for designing cars," Luce says, "and reinterpreted it in terms of architectural space--rearranging the studios to improve communication."
Ironically, Luce's career began with a large-scale commission. Right out of architecture school at Canada's Carleton University, the Montrealer won a competition in 1985 for a 2-million-square-foot building for the Center for Innovative Technology in Herendon, Virginia. To get it built, Luce joined Arquitectonica in Miami, bringing the project with her. When the building was completed, Martha Schwartz, the landscape architect, had some advice. "She said that if I wanted to work on my own, I had to go to California," recalls Luce. "Sight unseen, I moved to San Diego."
Luce et Studio opened in 1990, emphasizing the collaboration between architecture, art, and design. A growing fascination with landscape led her to Harvard in 1993, where she undertook a...