Rick Joy makes architecture look so easy.

I believe a large  part of this comes from his understanding of landscape and context. His use of materials, particularly  rammed earth, and his sculptural attitude towards the landscape are very memorable in photos. I would love to experience the buildings themselves after reading their vivid descriptions.

I did not really understand Steven Holl’s comments that Rick Joy is operating ‘on the fringe’. Obviously he has a small practice  but it seems he has gained a lot of notoriety and mainstream attention in a relatively small amount of time. While sometimes it seems that large firms and celebrity architects define the profession, from what I have experienced and read most practitioners actually work in small firms or are self-employed.  From what I know Rick Joy is very well respected in the architectural community and while he may be better at what he does than most of us,  I do not see him as the radical or outside the mainstream. Maybe my perspective is misinformed… but I would at least like to think that all of us would strive for the same type of attention to materials, light, landscape, and place as Rick Joy and that these are basic architectural considerations.