People
Zakaria Boucetta
Project Designer
McGill University MArch
University at Buffalo B.S.Arch
Montreal/Marrakech
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Zakaria Boucetta joined Studio Rick Joy as a Project Designer in 2022 and is involved in the design development of residential projects.
He values the overlap between built structures and their surroundings, with a strong interest and sensitivity to site-specific context, materiality, light, and ecology. Working in SRJ’s collaborative environment expands his connection to this process.
Prior to joining the studio, Zakaria worked at award-winning offices in New York, Paris, Berlin, and Copenhagen on various project types and scales including private residences, cultural projects, affordable housing, and master planning. He played an integral role in concept design and design development.
Raised in the south of Spain and Morocco, he has focused his award-nominated studies on traditional earth construction through multigenerational homes and the preservation and planning of agrarian townships.
His formative experiences inspire his exploration of subtle moments of expression and function, especially in the intention of gathering in and creation of common spaces.
Taylor Garcia Dickson
Director of Communications
St. Edward’s University, BA
Mount St. Mary’s College, MA
Brownsville, Texas
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Taylor joined Studio Rick Joy in 2020, with over a decade of experience as a director, project manager and consultant. She is highly skilled in PR & marketing, brand management, trust and archival work, project & event production, development, contemporary art, client relationships and community cultivation.
Her work with artists, brands and institutions internationally includes projects in Los Angeles, Austin, New York, Miami, London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin.
Prior to joining the studio, she was the Membership & Development Director at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, Arizona and the Director of the Hopper Art Trust in Los Angeles, California. She is a licensed real estate agent in the state of Arizona.
Taylor was raised in Brownsville, Texas on the border of the US and Mexico. She is an indigenous Mexican American and a dual citizen of both countries.
Anna Fletcher
Designer
Virginia Tech, BArch
Norfolk, Virginia
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Anna joined Studio Rick Joy in 2021. She has been involved in various facets of the design process ranging from analytical work, conceptual modeling, and rendering.
Her career in architecture is just beginning and she is keen to take on new challenges that will continue to aid in the development of her creative skillset and understanding of architecture as a whole.
Prior to joining the studio, Anna interned in Virginia and has an extensive background in the visual arts, particularly hand drawing and graphic design.
She hopes to use architecture as a means of bringing to life the untold tales of our kind through immersive and sensory narrative experiences.
Bernardo Hernandez
Project Manager and Designer
ITESO Universidad Jesuita, BArch
Guadalajara, Mexico
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Bernardo joined Studio Rick Joy in 2021. He is involved in the design development of residential projects.
His decade plus of international experience in design and construction of residential, commercial and hospitality projects while working in award-wining offices in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and his native Guadalajara, Mexico has led to an authentic incorporation of diverse design approaches to create thoughtful architecture.
Bernardo has traveled and lived abroad in France, England, and Ethiopia and believes this diverse experience has broadened his perspective of how timeless spaces have been built in different traditions.
For the past five years, he has had his own practice in Guadalajara, Mexico where his studio’s work has been nominated for awards both in Mexico and the US.
Bernardo is inspired by the history and culture of places and how that influences the built environment.
Annheliza Jordaan
Senior Project Manager and Designer, SACAP
University of the Free State, South Africa
BArchStud, BArchStud(Hons), MArch(Prof)
Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
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Annheliza has been with Studio Rick Joy since 2016. As an experienced project manager, she has worked on all phases of the architectural process and has overseen numerous schemes through construction. She is also involved in the general management of the studio.
Her passion to lead encourages streamlined systems which result in efficiency and a designed product of the highest quality strongly rooted in the studio’s core values. As a mentor she enjoys promoting office operations that support team participation and learning from active construction sites.
Since 2007, she has driven the coordination of large collaborative teams on award-winning developments -- master planning, high-rise commercial, hospitality, high-end residential and retail – making her widespread knowledge a trusted resource.
Prior to joining Studio Rick Joy, she worked as Project Architect, Designer and Manager for internationally renowned offices throughout South Africa and in the UK.
Annheliza finds inspiration in the observation of nature, a reminder of what our environment has to offer when we create a sense of place for a sheltered human experience.
Claudia Kappl Joy
Senior Advisor
Lighting and Interior Design, CLD, IALD, MIES, WKO
University of Technology Graz, Master of Architecture
Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Master of Architectural Lighting and Health
Kaernten / Austria
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Claudia is the partner of Rick Joy and has been a collaborator to the SRJ team for over 13 years.
In 2013, Rick and Claudia co-founded the lighting design consultancy studio, CLL – Concept Lighting Lab, LLC, in which she is creative and managing director, leading all projects - responsible thru implementation – having done so on several award-winning projects.
This includes large scale Masterplans, Civic Plaza Lighting, Roadway and Pathway Lighting, Installations, Hospitality, large- and small-scale Commercial Projects, High-end Residential and Boutique Designs, as well as Specialty Lighting Applications and Art Lighting.
She is recognized as a CLD – Certified Lighting Designer, and with more than 16 years of experience, her areas of expertise range from concept design, design development and construction documents, specification and technical coordination, building integrated modelling, cost comparison, value engineering, trade coordination, procurement and implementation, including aiming-adjusting and retrofit solutions.
She has lived and worked in Austria, the United Kingdom, Sweden and since 2007 has called Tucson, Arizona her work and home base.
Claudia’s fascination with the ephemeral quality of light and its essential role when creating moving atmospheric space is at the base of her design approach and interest.
Rick Joy
Principal, FAIA, Int. FRIBA
University of Arizona, BArch
Maine / Tucson for 30+ years
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Rick Joy is the founder and principal of Studio Rick Joy.
He is considered an important contributor to the ongoing global discourse on conceptual and sustainable architecture. His work expresses innovation and exactitude in modernism and reflects a unique sense of place.
Honors include receiving the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Architecture in 2002 and in 2004 winning the prestigious National Design Award from the Smithsonian Institute/Cooper-Hewitt Museum.
In 2015, Rick was vested into the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows and the Royal Institute of British Architects’ RIBA International College of Fellows.
He was inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame in a Javits Center event in 2019.
Other professional affiliations include The College of Fellows of The American Institute of Architects, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, Tucson MOCA Advisory Board Member.
Rick lectures internationally and periodically serves as visiting professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Rice University, M.I.T. and the University of Arizona.
The studio’s first monograph, Desert Works, was released by Princeton Architectural Press in 2002 and the second, Studio Joy Works, was released in 2018.
He is also the co-owner of CLL Concept Lighting Lab with his partner Claudia Kappl Joy. CLL provides full-service lighting design for all SRJ projects in addition to outside firms.
Originally from Maine, he studied music and was a classical percussionist and rock/blues drummer until the age of 28 when he moved to Tucson to study Architecture.
Mitch Mackowiak
Senior Designer
Rice University, BA and BArch
St. Louis, Missouri
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Since joining Studio Rick Joy in 2019, Mitch has been involved in commercial, master planning, institutional, and residential work as well as collaborations with Concept Lighting Lab.
His analytical design process and attention to detail has helped develop projects’ early design schemes.
Prior to joining the studio, Mitch worked for offices in Boston and St. Louis, taking part in the design phases for a variety of projects including a mausoleum chapel and a cinematheque.
He seeks to build what evokes reciprocity between sustenance, shelter, and surroundings.
Dan Martin
Chief Financial Officer
The University of Arizona, BA & MBA
Cleveland, Ohio
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Dan was initially an advisor to the Studio before joining full-time in January 2013. As the Chief Financial Officer, he handles both day-to-day business, contractual and financial matters as well as longer-term planning.
His years as a financial advisor with UBS as well as experiences in technology and manufacturing give him the insight to understand and assist with a diverse range of projects.
Dan is originally from Cleveland, Ohio and is currently building his own house in his spare time.
Tofan Rafati
Senior Project Manager and Designer
San Diego State University, BS
Virginia Tech, MArch
Iran / Sweden / So Cal
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Tofan joined Studio Rick Joy as a designer in 2015 and has since worked on residential, polo club and stables, and hospitality projects. He has expanded his role into project management and is also engaged in managing the studio.
He strongly believes in the studio’s core values and phenomenological aspects of architecture, and strives to create thoughtful, useful, and beautiful spaces that are built with a natural feeling for place.
Prior to joining the studio, Tofan worked at award-winning offices in Boston as well as Mumbai, India. He brings with him experience in working on various project types and scales including private residences, institutional projects, and master planning.
Tofan finds inspiration in the vernacular of life and architecture that is inherently contextual and essential.
Paulina Robledo Adame
Project Designer
Instituto Tecnologico de Chihuahua II, BArch
Chihuahua, Mexico
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Paulina joined Studio Rick Joy in 2021. She currently contributes to the pre-design process and design development.
She perceives SRJ as a place where there is freedom to exercise one’s approach to conceiving architecture. Her passion lies in exploring the relationship between gaze, context and how it defines functionality and form.
Prior to joining the studio, Paulina was based in Mexico City where she worked on all phases of architecture from initial programming through construction documentation on various projects across Mexico.
Her personal connection to ancient cultures and the natural landscape of Aridoamerica is profoundly inspired by being born and raised in Chihuahua, Mexico.
Alyssa Sackman
Project Manager and Designer
Kansas State University, MArch
Kansas City, Missouri
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Alyssa joined Studio Rick Joy in 2018. She has played a part in the studio’s early planning, analysis, and design phases for several projects, and further developed those schemes through coordinating with full consultant teams to bring the concepts through to construction.
Her thorough and reliable nature has been a strength in developing the detailing of those projects in documentation.
She has experience working on institutional, cultural, commercial, residential, and mixed-use projects. Prior to joining the studio full-time, Alyssa conducted an eight-month internship with SRJ.
As a graduate student, she spent a semester studying architecture in Orvieto, Italy.
Gustavo Silva
Project Designer
Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de Mexico, BArch
Caracas, Venezuela / Mexico City, Mexico
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Gustavo joined Studio Rick Joy in 2021. He is involved in the conceptual development of residential projects.
His practice focuses on generating an impact on how people inhabit space, and values when attention is given to the finer details of the objects that compose it.
Prior to joining the studio, Gustavo worked in offices in Mexico City where he was involved in all stages of project development from conceptual designs to construction drawings. These projects ranged in scale from architectural and urban projects to object and furniture design.
Born in Venezuela, raised in Mexico, with experience studying abroad in both Chile and London, he has a constant desire to explore the world and learn from the differences in cultures.
Sofia Soto
Registered Architect
Texas Tech University, MArch, MBA
Monterrey, Mexico
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Sofía joined Studio Rick Joy in 2022, drawn to its design philosophy and commitment to integrative diverse perspectives in cooperative practice. Her experience focuses on elevated residential projects, where she has worked on all phases of design and taken projects from concept to completion.
Originally from Monterrey, México, after graduating from university, she moved to the Pacific Northwest. As an Architect, she is interested in different social and cultural backgrounds, sustainable practices, and thoughtful work that is sensitive to place. She finds inspiration in spaces that evoke our senses and make us feel alive.
Prior to the studio, Sofía worked for offices in Seattle, Washington, as Project Architect and Manager for a variety of custom projects. She is a Registered Architect and holds license in the State of Washington.
Outside of work , she volunteers as a Board Member and Marketing Director of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) Northwest chapter, with the goal of elevating minority voices in our industry and helping to increase licensures.
Chris Thai
Designer
Cal Poly Pomona, BArch
Garden Grove, California
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Chris joined Studio Rick Joy in 2021. He has been engaged in conceptual design, rendering, and analytical work.
He is interested in the place-making ability of architecture and how people can mark one place as more special than other spaces in the world through the delimitation of borders.
Prior to joining the studio, Chris won various design awards both at university and abroad during his yearlong stay in Copenhagen. Most recently, he worked for an office in Irvine, California, taking part in the design and construction document phases for a variety of custom residential projects.
Raised by Vietnamese immigrants, Chris’s design is heavily influenced by Vietnamese culture: specifically, the connection to other people through food, and a pragmatic approach to all things while not hesitating to find inspiration in the most banal moments in life.