John Bryant M.Arch ‘07 was a fish out of water when it came to designing for Florida's climate.
A transplant from the Northeast and a new architect for Sweet Sparkman—Sarasota, Florida's largest architecture firm—one of Bryant‘s first big jobs was to revitalize a historic pavilion along Siesta Key Beach that could withstand Category 3 hurricanes, the hot, humid conditions of the Sunshine State and the instability of sand.
It was a formidable project for getting his feet wet, and almost another world compared to the tranquil project sites he had worked in Upstate New York and Pennsylvania for Manhattan-based Kliment Halsband Architects.
“Florida should really have its own licensing exam because of hurricanes and other things [like] coastal flooding,” Bryant said “There's a lot of unique requirements that we deal with down here that they don't test you on.”
Thirteen years later, Bryant has built both a knack for tackling the climate-specific design challenges of Florida and a reputation at Sweet Sparkman, where he’s now a principal. The firm’s projects have won numerous Florida AIA design awards, including the Venice Public Library in Venice, Florida, which also won project of the year from the American Public Works Association in 2020.
Bryant’s first taste of designing for a warmer climate was a tropical regionalism class at the University of Maryland under Professor Emeritus William Bechhoefer as a graduate student, which was capped off with a trip to Thailand in 2007. It was there where Bryant learned about tropical contemporary design, deep overhangs and natural ventilation—lessons he found himself referencing after relocating to Florida—that have helped him throughout his career.
"It was very interesting modern design, but it also incorporated responses to the climate,” Bryant said.
Below, Bryant talks leisure time in the hot Florida weather, his motivation to keep going and his favorite songs to play on the piano:
The quotes have been condensed and edited for clarity.
What is an interesting fact about you?
I love doing yard work around my house. I don't know how interesting that is, but I love being outside. I never had a green thumb, but now I've got plants growing around my house and I'm keeping them alive. It clears my head, and I've just gotten a lot of satisfaction out of it.
What motivates you to keep going?
With architecture, every day is different, and I like that. Learning new things motivates me to move forward. Something [that] I like to tell my staff or the people I'm working with is you never assume anything. You have to explore and verify everything, whether it's studying design options or understanding the building code. I feel like as architects–and probably for engineers and scientists–you have to be sure you're arriving at the right answer, you know?
There can be multiple right answers, but you can't just assume the first right answer is good enough. So, I think I'm also very motivated to find the “best” right answer.
What goal would you like to achieve in the next five years?
I do triathlons sometimes, and I've done shorter distance triathlons, but I've been thinking that I'd like to set a goal to do a Half Ironman or something really long. Now, I'm going to have to hold myself to it!
You earned your undergraduate degree in music at Grinnell College — do you play any instruments?
I still play guitar and piano, but not as much as I’d like to. I played trumpet a lot through high school and college. The piano is my favorite. There's just something about the experience of the way your hands move across the piano keyboard. I'm probably not the best at it, but I love playing it. I like to play Billy Joel songs; "New York State of Mind" would probably be my favorite.
What is the best advice a mentor has given you?
There are times when you might get stuck in a design process. It's almost like architectural writer's block. My dad gave me this advice, and it was something to the effect of, “A centipede has a hundred feet. To start moving, it just needs to move one of those feet.” You just have to start on something. It would be overwhelming to have to move a hundred feet at one time, but you just need to start with one.