From family houses to historic restorations, hotels, and high-tech office spaces--the architectural firm of Roger Ferris + Partners has pursued uncommonly diverse projects at vastly different scales, all with an approach to design that synthesizes imagination and logic. Whether a 1,500-square-foot house on a narrow lot overlooking Long Island Sound, or the Royal Bank of Scotland's US headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut--with a six-story glazed atrium and a "courtyard in the sky" on the roof of its two-story trading floor--a building that is "well conceived and artfully executed, cannot help but be beautiful."

Among Ferris' major projects are a golf clubhouse that has turned a conservative typology on its ear with bladelike forms inspired by a racing engine turbine, and a partially sunken service entrance in which impresario Robert Wilson has staged theatrical productions. A design for a restaurant includes not only a central, glass-enclosed kitchen elevated 18 inches above the floor, but an art installation that periodically projects scrolling text on the dining room wall. In every project, the fulfillment of the client's functional needs is rendered in the most elemental and legible way, resulting in both formal elegance and dramatic power.
About the Author: Roger Ferris began his distinguished career working with noted architect and educator Victor Christ-Janer, one of the architects who helped define the modernist architectural movement in the United States. A graduate of Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, where he was also named a postgraduate Loeb Fellow in Advanced Environmental Studies, he founded the practice Roger Ferris + Partners in Westport, Connecticut. He is an active member of the American Institute of Architects and the Royal Institute of British Architects, as well as a frequent lecturer and design juror.

William S. Saunders is book review editor of Landscape Architecture Magazine and the recently retired editor of Harvard Design Magazine. He is author and editor of several books, including monographs of architectural photographer Ezra Stoller and landscape architects Kongjian Yu, Richard Haag, and Dan Kiley. Saunders has a Ph.D. in literary criticism and modern British literature.

Robert M. Rubin is an architectural historian, collector, and patron. His Bridge Golf Club on Long Island is the site of ongoing projects with Roger Ferris, including the acclaimed clubhouse.

Robert Wilson is the foremost experimental theater stage director of our time. He is founder and artistic director of The Watermill Center in Water Mill, New York, where Roger Ferris + Partners is building an underground library and performance space.