Chris Purdy

Chris marvels at the changes in his career in the last couple of decades. "I began working for a small firm, doing everything from running blueprints to designing a vacation house," he recalls. Today, as director of the firm's Higher Education market, Chris oversees master planning, renovation, expansion and new construction projects for academic clients. "The way architects create place and shape public spaces fascinates me," he says. "My focus now is on providing thought leadership to our college and university clients as they respond to their students' educational needs. The way students learn is rapidly changing. In 10 years, we will be designing new types of spaces for them—spaces that are uniquely individualized or personalized at one extreme and intensively social at the other." Not a problem, as change seems to energize him. He enjoys looking at maps, he says, "planning a trip somewhere I haven't been before."