Archinect - Features

Jacoby Architects Discusses Their Design for an Educational Facility Catering to the Deaf and Blind

2018-10-08T13:50:00-04:00

A year ago, Joe Jacoby took over his father's Utah-based architecture firm, but the small practice is still churning out the kind of large-scale, passionate projects they've become known for. For example, the team recently completed the C. Mark Openshaw Education Center, an educational facility for the Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind that caters to blind and visually impaired, deaf-blind, and deaf and hard of hearing students.

Despite a sizable portion of our population reporting visual and hearing impairments, our buildings and urban spaces typically aren't designed for them. To look at the alternative to this, we talked with Joe to see how his firm rendered accessibility through their architectural work, bringing a new perspective to the meaning of good design.

The blind justice of Salt Lake City's courthouse

2016-06-28T08:29:00-04:00

Architecture normally receives very little public notice in Salt Lake City, but the new federal courthouse here got the public’s attention. The Salt Lake Tribune and a local TV news station’s website KSL.com received a wave of letters and posts in response to articles about its opening in 2014. The overwhelming consensus was negative.

How 4 US cities are applying architectural solutions to homelessness

2016-05-23T18:29:00-04:00

Housing First, a federal policy for ending chronic homelessness that grew out of initiatives in Los Angeles and New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s, provides what appears to be the most effective solution to homelessness in the United States: actually housing people. Since implementing Housing First programs in Utah in 2005, Salt Lake City reported up to a 91% reduction in their rate of the chronically homeless.

Student Works: FOUNDhouse by Patrick Beseda and Lacy Williams

2014-02-05T13:56:00-05:00

When Patrick Beseda and Lacy Williams began realizing their ambition to build a micro-dwelling, they began with a Wikihouse design. The WikiHouse project is an open-source library of construction sets for houses, where anyone can submit, edit, and use the designs. The design's components can all be "printed" from plywood using a CNC machine, and are simple enough to assemble with minimal training. Lacy and Patrick, both MArch students at the University of Colorado, Denver, set out to build their own micro-Wikihouse last summer, personalizing the template along their way.

Archinect - Features

Jacoby Architects Discusses Their Design for an Educational Facility Catering to the Deaf and Blind​

The blind justice of Salt Lake City's courthouse

How 4 US cities are applying architectural solutions to homelessness

Student Works: FOUNDhouse by Patrick Beseda and Lacy Williams

Jacoby Architects Discusses Their Design for an Educational Facility Catering to the Deaf and Blind