About

Jack Eure, AIA is an architect, planner and developer. Working in the Austin, Texas area, he leads an innovative architecture practice, called ArchitectEure, and a conservation development studio. Jack graduated from Vanderbilt (1994) as the first interdisciplinay humanities graduate in school history, with a BA in The History of Contemporary Ideas. After studying traditional Japanese landscape architecture and architecture abroad for a time in Kyoto, Japan, he received a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Oregon in 1999. Jack has a background in advanced green, craft construction, including rammed earth construction and training with the master carpentry crew of Studio Rick Joy in Tucson. Jack is a member of the Urban Land Institute, Co-Chair of the ULI Austin Chapter of the Small Scale Development Council, and he holds a Real Estate Development Certificate from the ULI. In his spare time, Jack writes and plays music and makes abstract art. Jack and his daughter live in Lakeway, Texas.

Philosophy

Architecture can be a vehicle for bringing people together to make a better world. The design of buildings should not be viewed (as it usally is) divorced from its larger context. Architecture does best when rejoined with the allied arts of landscape architecture, interiors, architectural history, philosophy, building science, planning, art, psychology, ecology, socioeconomics, engineering, health and wellness, and esthetics. It is hard for a building to be worthwhile in isolation. New and more vital urban plans are needed to make architecture come alive. In metropolitain areas where building regulations prohibit creative architecture and planning, it is sometimes possible (though in some ways regrettable) to site small conservation communities- agrihoods, hamlets and villages paired with nature preserves- in the less regulated hinterlands of metro areas. There are possibilities in setting aside as much land as possible on each site as dedicated greenspace held in common, and clustering homes and businesses into a walkable moderate density that evokes historic villages. In this way, people can be brought back together in a real (not virtual) community, and enjoy an experience of real and often harmonious living with neighbors in a restorative, resilient, rural setting. Architecture pairs well with a focus on getting the analog, archaic aspects right. That is how the buildings and villages of yesterday endear themselves to us today, and that is how our creations may endear themselves to tomorrow.