David Hovey

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David Hovey David Hovey

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Living Beautifully Helmut Jahn

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The Achievement Cheryl Kent Illustrated Optima Projects

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Kierland Center

82

Optima Chicago Center I and Signature

126

Sonoran Village

170

Camelview Village

214

Old Orchard Woods

248

Biltmore Towers

270

Sterling Ridge

312

Cloud Chaser

332

Shadow Caster

354

Ravine Bluff

398

North Pointe

414

Sandy Knoll

428

Sheridan Elm

438

Brilliant Journey Alex Marshall

486

Art and Architecture The Hovey Collection

500

Acknowledgments

502

Image Credits

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Living Beautifully

Helmut Jahn David Hovey

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The best thing that can be said about the work of David Hovey Sr. in his chosen field of multifamily and single-family housing is that he builds unique and inventive dwellings for people to live beautifully. That he chooses to play not just the role of the architect but also that of developer, contractor, construction manager, sales and leasing agent, and building operator makes the achievement more remarkable. As his own client and CEO of his company, Optima, Hovey demonstrates that it is possible to successfully execute the very different skills of an architect and a developer by applying tremendous knowledge and tenacity and assuming great responsibility.

Many who have tried to work as an architectdeveloper have failed because they did not find the right balance. David Hovey expanded the role of the architect to the level of a master builder and in this, he is without equal in his generation.

In this role, as a master builder, Hovey manages to achieve what is generally thought to be impossible: that is, building better buildings at lower cost. He can do this because he listens to himself and knows what he wants to achieve, and he can implement his plan because he controls the whole process. Cost cutting, or value engineering, doesn’t happen in the conventional way under Hovey. Instead of reducing the quality of a building, he reduces everything in the delivery process to what is absolutely necessary. Call it less is more. The goal is only achieved if nothing can be taken away.

There is no denying that our education prepares and shapes us for our professional

life. David Hovey studied from 1962 to 1970, and was awarded a bachelor of architecture and then a master of science from Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture (now known as Illinois Tech College of Architecture), where the curriculum had been designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Hovey took Mies’s educational practice as the basis for a more liberated mission. Hovey took the underpinnings of modernism—structure, materials, space, color, and texture—and integrated and extended them further, as evident in his architecture today.

From 1974 to 1978, Hovey worked with me at what was then C.F. Murphy Associates (now JAHN) on the Auraria Library (1975) in Denver, the Rust-Oleum Corporation’s headquarters (1978) in Vernon Hills, Illinois, the La Lumiere Gymnasium (1978) in LaPorte, Indiana, and the De La Garza Career Center (1981) in East Chicago, Indiana.

There is no doubt that David’s input, especially with respect to detailing these “machines,” like the sun shades on Auraria, had a significant impact on these defining buildings of my career. When David left, he founded Optima in Chicago in 1978 with the goal of reinventing multifamily residential housing by optimizing development, design, and construction within a single company.

Optima has existed for more than forty years now and has an impressive record, a large and varied roster of housing projects, from single family to multifamily, from low-rise to high-rise, urban to suburban and desert. During this time, Hovey has built nearly six thousand condominiums and apartment units in the Chicago metropolitan Living Beautifully

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David Hovey

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Kierland Center

50

David Hovey

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Kierland Center

74

David Hovey

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Kierland Center

128

David Hovey

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Sonoran Village

172

David Hovey

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Camelview Village

208 David Hovey, Wind Song (2008) (left) and Sundance (2008) (right)

David Hovey

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Camelview Village

284

David Hovey

285

Sterling Ridge

344

David Hovey

345

Shadow Caster

418

David Hovey

419

Sandy Knoll

488

Josef Albers, Variant, 1958, oil on Masonite, 36¾ × 40 in.

Jean (Hans) Arp, Tête florale, 1960, polished bronze, 18½ in.

Jean (Hans) Arp, Sculpture méditerranéene I, 1941, white marble, 24 in.

Alexander Calder, Untitled, 1976, gouache and ink on paper, 43 × 29 in.

Alexander Calder, Helices, 1974, lithograph, 29½ × 43 in.

Alexander Calder, Les trois arches, 1974, lithograph, 29½ × 43¼ in.

Alexander Calder, Untitled, 1974, gouache on paper, 29½ × 43⅛ in.

Alexander Calder, Soleil sur les vagues, 1973, lithograph, 22¾ × 30¾ in.

Alexander Calder, Yellow Skeleton, 1973, painted metal, 28 × 56 × 20 in.

David Hovey

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Alexander Calder, Red Pachyderm, 1970, painted metal and rod, 26½ × 50 × 12 in.

Alexander Calder, L'Acier du constructeur, 1969, lithograph, 21¾ × 29½ in.

Alexander Calder, Deux spirales, 1969, lithograph, 29½ × 43¼ in.

Alexander Calder, Soucoupes dans le noir, 1969, lithograph, 43¼ × 29¼ in.

Alexander Calder, Spiral rouge et bleu, 1969, lithograph, 43¼ × 29¼ in.

Alexander Calder, untitled (maquette for larger mobile in black and silver), 1951, aluminum and painted steel, 35 × 39¾ × 23 in.

Alexander Calder, Water Bug, 1950, painted sheet metal and rod, 27½ × 14½ × 8¼ in.

Alexander Calder, Model T Stabile, 1946, painted metal, 24½ in.

Art and Architecture

509

David C. Hovey, FAIA, founded Optima in 1978, with the goal of reinventing multifamily housing by optimizing development and design in a single company. Over the fortyplus years the company has existed, Hovey has built nearly six thousand residential units. In the process, he has elevated the design of a building type that has, with a few exceptions, been left to developers to produce indifferent work. He challenges the market with something better, something worthy of enfolding families and individuals. Hovey is a modernist, steadfast in his belief in the future, in technology, in material honesty, in structural expression, and in architecture’s ability to

$125.00 [USA] £90.00 [GB]

improve the lives of people. His work has captured attention, winning critical acclaim as well as many national and regional awards for architecture. The thirteen representative projects in this book range from single-family homes to towers and from the company’s early years to the present.

Helmut Jahn, who has known Hovey for fortyfive years, has written the introduction. Essays

by Cheryl Kent and Alex Marshall examine respectively the architectural achievement, and secondly, trace Hovey’s life and describe how he successfully combined the roles of architect and developer.

Photography David Hovey (Sonoran Village; detail) Front cover: Bill Timmerman Back cover: Bill Timmerman