Wheeler Kearns Architects

Wheeler Kearns is a collective practice of architects. We work with people who seek to enrich their lives in spaces that embody their purpose, energy and vision.

When a space we design resonates with your deepest intention, it has a lasting and powerful impact. As we work with you, we devote all our energies to understanding your core purpose, the transformation you seek, your mission. We want to see your challenge through your eyes. Doing this guides us to what we call the “emotional center,” the heart around which your entire project revolves. We return to that central idea as we craft concepts, help you make decisions, and refine our responses to those choices. Everything from the big-picture view to the design of a door handle evolves from that emotional center. The result is a space that responds uniquely to your life, your mission.

Our design process requires an uncommon level of attention, curiosity, devotion. Our clients use the word “partner” to describe us as often as “architect.” And we’re proud of that. It reflects our belief that along with a lofty vision, sometimes you also need someone willing to tackle the mundane.

One mind focused on solving your problem is good; many are better. We use our unusual structure as a “collective practice of architects” to solicit multiple ideas from a team in the early stages of the design process. It offers you a wider spectrum of possibility. And that can lead to solutions that nobody anticipated, like transforming a shuttered lumberyard into a model, 21st-century school. Or discovering that the 70-foot tower of an abandoned food-manufacturing plant really can be a viable and exciting performance space. Always, we seek to open doors to new ideas about how you can live into your aspiration.