The Preservationist

I t was my love for sci-fi that triggered my imagination and passion for reshaping the physical world. The roots were already there — my dad was a contractor, and I’d gravitated toward classes like art history and woodshop in school. Growing up in a rural Texas town watching films like “THX 1138” and “Star Wars,” it occurred to me that someone had to design those futures.

Architecture, you could conclude, involves creating tomorrow before it happens. That brought out my creative juices.

My time at the University of Houston was instrumental in my development as an architect. It helped me hone the craft of design. It introduced me to like-minded classmates who taught me as much as the professors — which is no knock on the professors. I still collaborate with many of my peers from UH. And I’ll never forget some of the memories, like the time we built a full-scale replica of the Tempietto in Rome, only to have the fire marshal discover it and tear it down. It was, after all, made of plywood and cardboard, sepia paper and hot glue.

At first, I was interested only in shiny things, new things. The domes in the sci-fi “Logan’s Run” inspired my master’s project at Harvard, a reimagining of the Astrodome. After I graduated, I joined a Houston design firm named William F. Stern & Associates Architects, working under Bill Stern. In 1999, Bill and I formed a partnership, launching Stern and Bucek Architects and bringing aboard Daniel Hall. When Bill passed away suddenly in 2013 from pancreatic cancer, we made a conscious decision to leave the name alone.

We started doing residential renovations before taking on new builds and, finally, working with commercial clients. The through line of all our work is that we recognize it’s ultimately not for us. It’s for our clients. We make an effort to check our egos at the door and understand what they’re looking for. That means we consider ourselves a custom design shop, and our work tends to look very different from one project to the next. They’re unified by our attention to detail, but the outcome is driven by the project rather than a specific look or style.

Over time, I’ve developed an appreciation for the influence of the past and for the importance of preserving historic structures. That makes it more meaningful that Preservation Houston, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving historic architecture in Houston and Texas, honored me with the 2024 President’s Award.

Projects of historic importance have their own sets of demands. It’s imperative to begin by researching to understand the project, its purpose, who commissioned and designed it, whether it was successful, and why it’s significant. Another consideration — one your average person may not think of — is the passive energy strategies behind some of these buildings.

Sometimes the greenest building is the one that already exists, particularly if it was designed before the time of air conditioning and electricity, meaning it needed to be constructed to utilize the sun. Like any project, you want a full understanding before making decisions.

I’ve been fortunate to work on several historic undertakings in Houston. Among others: the Philip Johnson-designed Menil House; the Apollo Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center, a project that honored the 50th anniversary of the moon landing; and, more recently, the Eldorado Ballroom in Third Ward, the music venue where all the top rhythm, jazz and blues artists played during the 20th century. The challenge of the latter was creating a space that was of the neighborhood, which has seen much change in recent years — not all of it beneficial to its residents.

I’m drawn to cities and communities that retain elements of their past and find creative ways to add new buildings. As a cityscape, I find it much more interesting. The design of a structure shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. We should be thinking about the context around what we’re building. We should be thinking about how our work affects and reinforces the neighborhood, becomes one with the neighborhood.

After all, this approach is what distinguishes one city from the next one down the road. We must prioritize telling stories about who and why our cities evolved the way they did. To stand in front of the important structures that represent achievement is to really appreciate the progress we’ve made to date and what’s to come. It’s not about looking back at all; it’s about going forward with respect to the environment you inherited.

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