I have always tried to be a trailblazer,” confides Travis Price. “Since I was 12 years old, I loved building tree forts in the Georgia swamps, traipsing through the jungles of Panama and being immersed in European cities. To sculpt and touch livable space is my deepest passion.”
Price founded his firm in 1980 and has since amassed a vast portfolio. He coined the term “passive solar” in Santa Fe, where he built the first passive solar homes based on his master’s thesis. He teaches award-winning graduate architecture courses, lectures on sacred historical places for the National Geographic Society and builds authentic modern architecture “for happy clients,” he says.
Price and his staff of six design residential, commercial and institutional projects, espousing a philosophy that synthesizes ecology, mythology and technology in a modern idiom. “We listen carefully to the stories of the client and the nature of the site, both before and during the design process,” the architect relates. “We hope to inspire modern authenticity so that clients find shoes that finally fit them.”
TPA recently received eight national AIA design awards for its Spirit of Place installations. Price has been nominated for the National AIA Gold Medal for contributions to cultural and ecological literacy in modern architecture. He is the author of two award-winning books, The Archaeology of Tomorrow and The Mythic Modern—Architectural Expeditions into the Spirit of Place. He is currently at work on a third book.