A Conversation With Tom Ward Reflections on Innovation, Integrity and Designing for Place Tom Ward’s path to architecture began long before he ever set foot in a design studio. Raised in a blue-collar family that hopscotched across the American heartland before settling in Wyoming, he grew up surrounded by builders, makers and problem-solvers. Those early influences followed him through a decade in New York City and eventually back to Jackson Hole, where he co-founded Ward+Blake Architects in 1996. By the early 2000s, Ward was not just designing buildings — he was inventing new ways to create them, developing a patented post-tensioned rammed-earth system known as “Earthwall,” an early marker of his commitment to low-carbon construction. Ward credits his architectural education at Arizona State University with sharpening that instinct. Immersed in one of the nation’s leading programs for passive and active solar design, he began to understand how architecture could be both expressive and deeply responsible — how materials, climate and energy could shape a building as much as aesthetics. That foundation would become a throughline in his work. Designing with an eye toward land stewardship came naturally to him. Over the decades, his practice evolved to embrace a vision of environmentally specific architecture — work that responds not just to people, but to place. For Ward, sustainability isn’t a trend; it’s an ethic, one born from growing up surrounded by tradespeople and wide-open Wyoming landscapes and later reinforced by curiosity and experience. In conversation, Ward is reflective, candid and often funny — equally ready with a philosophical aside or a story from a job site. When we sat down with him, he spoke about the unexpected path that led him to architecture, the mentors who shaped his imagination, the projects that pushed his practice forward and the challenges facing today’s designers. What follows are excerpts from that wide-ranging discussion. When and why did you decide to become an architect? I come from a family of blue-collar building titans. My dad was in the oil business. He was what they called a “tool pusher,” selling oil field drilling equipment. But that wasn’t his background; he was educated in geology and economics and worked in the oil field to support his family. Because of that, we moved a lot — from Michigan down to Abilene, Texas, and all the way across the breadbasket of America. We finally ended up in Casper, Wyoming, which is where I spent all my formative years. I had an idyllic childhood and consider myself a Wyoming native. My grandfather was in the trades. He was a pipe fitter. But he was also a jack of all trades. He was so good with his hands that there was nothing he couldn’t do. He was the mayor of Wapakoneta, Ohio, for six terms, and he played first and second violin in the orchestra. I used to go back east for about six weeks in the summer and spend time with him, which was a lot of fun. Those summers with him really left a lasting impression. He was old-school; he still wore a black vest, a white shirt and a tie with heavy trousers to crawl under houses and do plumbing. He would take me on job sites and show me how to do whatever he happened to be doing at any given time. When I was 7 or 8, he took me aside and said, “Tommy, if you become a tradesman like me, I’m going to be very disappointed in you.” That’s kind of heavy for an 8-year-old. When I asked why, he said, “You should be telling people like me what you need done, not doing it yourself.” As I got older, I became more interested in trades. I’m an absolute gearhead when it comes to cars, especially European cars, and for a while, my dream was to build hot rods. But no one was doing that in Casper, Wyoming; there was no outlet for that. In high school, I got interested in cooking and decided I was going to be a chef. I got a job at one of the better restaurants in town, and I worked my way up. But after spending more time in commercial kitchens, I knew I didn’t want to be doing that. Then my dilemma became: What do I do? I liked to build cars, and I liked the creative aspect of cooking and assembling ingredients. Then, at a career day in 9th grade, there was an architect there. He was showing a rendering of a building, and it all came together like nuclear fusion. It dawned on me: yeah, there are people who design buildings, and that’s how they get built. There were some really, really interesting buildings in Casper, Wyoming, in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, and after that career day, I started noticing them. There’s a bank in downtown Casper that’s still there; it’s all concrete shell structure and looks like a segmented orange. I remember walking by it as a kid and noticing the curved glass and curtains that somehow followed the contour of the building. It lit me up, and I never looked back after that. I knew that was what I wanted to do. 38 WYOMING ARCHITECTURE .25
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