Spirit
Architecture is personal, the art of making one’s place for the spirit. Our design process emphasizes personal connection and meaning in the everyday human experience.
Buildings belong to history, the land and our soul.
The land is our ally and should be honored.
Space is carved not built.
Architecture at its best disappears.
Design bonds owner, builder and craftspeople.
Leaving space for the unknown reconnects us with nature.
Meaning and beauty are discovered on a design journey with others.
The world is in a modest detail.
Everyone leaves a bit of themselves behind in their work.
The weight of a building is substantial and delicate, creating its own gravity.
Nick Deaver, AIA
Nick, a native West Texan, moved to Austin to establish an architectural practice after a long tenure with Centerbrook Architects, the 1998 AIA Firm of the Year, established by Charles W. Moore in Essex, Connecticut.
Nick’s work includes private residences, office buildings, theaters, arts and academic buildings, university housing, research laboratories, medical facilities, and recreational buildings.
He has received 7 national and 19 regional design awards for a wide range of projects from residential to genetics laboratories. Nick’s residential design, LeanToo earned a 2021 National AIA Housing Award, a 2020 Texas Tech College of Architecture Design Honor Award, a 2019 Texas Society of Architect’s (TxA) Design Award, and a 2017 AIA Austin Design Award. In 1992, Nick had the winning design for the Connecticut State Parks competition for Excellence in State Parks Architecture. His designs, chosen from a field of 52 submissions from New England architects, are being constructed throughout the Connecticut State Parks system.
His work has been published in The New York Times, Dwell, Residential Architect, Texas Architect Magazine, Austin Home, Tribeza, Western Art and Architecture, Remodeling Magazine, and in 2021 RaveOn was featured on Archdaily.com in the USA, China, Brazil and Spanish editions recognized as one of the top 50 projects viewed in that year.
Nick received a Bachelor of Architecture from Texas Tech University. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB).
Jes Deaver, AIA
Jes grew up in New England and Texas developing an interest in people’s place and the environment. In 2007, she became fluent in Spanish while volunteering in the village of Cárdenas, Nicaragua. She witnessed firsthand the power of living a life connected to the Earth.
Her interest in the future, land stewardship, helping people tell personal stories and frequent contributions to Texas Architect magazine have made her a recognized voice amongst Texas Architects. She was the 2020 AIA Austin Women in Architecture Committee Chair and has served on the Texas Society of Architects Public Outreach Task Force. In 2022 Jes and Nick were invited to share their work and theory on resilience as guest lecturers for the Texas Tech University College of Architecture’s Fall Lecture series. National profiles about their design vision were published in 2023 in Residential Design and Western Art and Architecture.
Before working with her father, Jes has worked as a designer at Pfeiffer Architects in Los Angeles where she was a team member on the design of a $40 million performing arts building at Gonzaga University, as well as, assisted with the design of The Digital Commons at the historic downtown Los Angeles Public library and feasibility planning for the California public library system.
She holds a Master of Architecture Degree from the University of Houston Graduate School of Architecture and Design and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Radio-TV-Film from the University of Texas at Austin. Jes is also a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) and is a Safety Assesment Evaluator on the Texas Disaster Response Team (CalOES).