Design Talk: David Heymann, FAIA

WHO: David Heymann, FAIA– Architect, contributing writer for Places Journal, and a University of Texas Distinguished Teaching Professor. He is interested in what people want from nature. Heymann’s architectural work, widely known for a sustainable house designed for George W. and Laura Bush in Crawford, has been variously published and recognized with design honors, including selection for Emerging Voices by the Architectural League of New York. He recently published My Beautiful City Austin, a book of short stories about a young architect struggling with his clients’ problematic wishes.

WHAT: My Beautiful City– The allure and explosive growth of Central Texas are at the center of the stories in My Beautiful City Austin, David Heymann’s first book of fiction (from which he will be reading). The narrator, a young architect starting his own practice, struggles to understand why his clients want what they want — a retiring couple needs an immense home in the middle of nature, a progressive couple wants a regressive house, a young family intends to build a castle — and so becomes complicit in destroying a landscape he seeks to protect.