Have you ever traveled with just a backpack or a carry-on?
Well, would you do it again?
RICHARD THOMAS REEP ARCHITECT is a carry-on only professional practice.
No checked bags; just the essentials to get you where you're going.
RICHARD THOMAS REEP ARCHITECT is also a backpack professional practice.
Your design trail can sometimes lead through green woods or undiscovered back roads.
RICHARD THOMAS REEP ARCHITECT doesn't feed a machine. We have no:
office rent huge payroll
company cars legacy burdens
There's no dreary lounge to stand in, waiting for your bags to spew someday onto the conveyor belt while you search for a baggage cart and worry whether the Uber has a big trunk.
RICHARD THOMAS REEP ARCHITECT is like your carry-on. We have:
nothing to prove global networks of key players
passion for efficiency focus on your profitability
We will pack the right items in your bag so you can get through security without a fuss and get to the gate in time for a drink before takeoff.
RICHARD THOMAS REEP ARCHITECT doesn't compete with office-based firms.
Sometimes you need a corporate architect, with design award-laden lobbies, layers of hierarchy, measured communication channels, principal tithing, and backroom interns doing most of the work. If you prefer all that baggage, you should probably skip us.
RICHARD THOMAS REEP ARCHITECT doesn't use AI-generated renderings, nor do we splurge on industry conferences or glossy magazine articles. We don't have slick business development cheesecake to sell services. That stuff just doesn't fit in your carry-on.
We design environments that lift the spirit.
We create based upon facts, not wishes or egos.
We presume you don't want to waste your time, and neither do we..
We create good architecture for good people who prefer to travel light.
Let's go.
Richard Thomas Reep: Architect, artist, and writer.
Richard Reep's experience has led him to the intersection of sustainability, affordability, and spatial equity.
These three tracks have always driven his design process.
Throughout his career, Reep has taught at the university level and he continues to seek knowledge so that he may inform his practice and help his clients better.
"I attended the University of Florida School of Architecture and studied under two very different professors.
Harry Merritt taught me tropical modernism, based on his own training under Walter Gropius and Paul Rudolph.
Ron Haase taught me vernacular design, and a deep appreciation for design around culture and climate.
My own father studied under Louis Kahn at the University of Pennsylvania when I was very young.
Tropical modernism, respect for the vernacular, and the poetry of spaces inform my work."
During graduate school, Reep interned for local Gainesville firms, designing affordable housing projects.
This taught him to respect efficiency and the dignity that design can bring to a home. He continued this work in Tampa, Florida with the legendary firm Rowe Holmes, maturing as an architect with museums and cultural centers, and more affordable housing. This led to creating The Rita, an affordable house that was realized in Sarasota County, Florida in 2016.
Luxury hospitality evntually defined Reep's career as he found striking commonality between dwelling spaces for the very poor and very rich. Completing hotels and resorts in over thirty countries for the last thirty years, Reep is now selective, taking only projects that interest him. These are often hospitality, affordable housing, historic preservation, cultural tourism, or urban design. Or all five. Or something completely different.
Reep's practice is based in Orlando, Florida with a global network of affiliates.
If your project is too big or too boring, he'll send you to someone who can handle you.
Artist and Writer? Whaa...?
Reep recently sold his older sketchbooks, but has at least two more boxes of them. Carrying around a sketchbook in his backpack or carryon, along with some pencils and pens, started as a child. "almost nothing better than sketching in a coffeehouse," Reep confessed recently, "except when something compels me to go into my studio." There, Reep is an environmental artist, upcycling trash into abstract architectural fragments.
[A drawing he did sometime in school.]
A Few of our collaborators
The Rita was the start.
Richard Thomas Reep Architect is a sole proprietorship owned by Rita Street Holdings LLC. The purpose of Rita Street Holdings is the design and development of real estate.
We are a dot org because our mission is focused on sustainability, affordability, and spatial equity rather than pure profit.
Richard is a licensed architect, the first Florida member of the International Living Future Institute, and a LEED Accredited professional.
art and design criticism
Art representative
fine art by Richard Reep