ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING & INTERIORS

About the Elk River Studio

 

Elk River Studio

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

  

James Easton founded the Elk River Studio in the Summer of 2019.  The Steamboat Springs, Colorado based Architectural design firm is an opportunity to share broad experience in Architecture and Design with clients looking for outstanding creativity.  The small-town atmosphere, mountain views and natural landscapes foster creativity and clarity.  The studio is design oriented yet rooted in the discipline of decades of creating detailed construction documents and thousands of Architectural details.  Our staff is qualified to design and produce construction documents for commercial and residential projects of any size in any state and/or territory in the United States.  Through professional reciprocity the firm will extend design services for construction overseen by qualified Architects of record anywhere in the world.

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James Easton, AIA NCARB

Principal

  

Mr. Easton has practiced Architecture for over twenty-five years.  As a student at Arizona State University, Mr. Easton served as an Architectural intern for the City of Phoenix.  There he received training as a building inspector and became a part of the construction team for the Phoenix Central Library, The Phoenix Museum of History, and the Arizona Science Center.  This first exposure to Public Architecture left a passion for creativity and freedom of artistic expression that has never wavered.

             

Upon graduation from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Science in Design in Architectural Studies, Mr. Easton began working in the office of Joseph Tyndall, AIA.  There he participated in the Master Plan of Hayden’s Ferry and the Tempe Town Lake.  The development created a new entry experience for Arizona State University and has blossomed into a dynamic feature of the Phoenix landscape, a place where thousands of people live, work, and play on the banks of the Rio Salado River.

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Mr. Easton later joined the fine Architectural firms of Allen + Philp in Old Town Scottsdale and Cox James Architects of Phoenix, Arizona.  The Architects expected junior staff to follow design projects from conception to construction.  Firm Principals and clients constantly reviewed all design work.  The time was a constant deep dive into the endless evaluation of form and function that is the practice of Architecture.  To him hotels, resorts, health spas and restaurants became creative experiences of living meant to delight, as a building is always about more than materials and construction.

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Throughout his career Mr. Easton has pursued a personal passion for environmental research.  In 2012, the Architect received a United States Patent for a process to remediate toxic substances found in industrial by-products.  The research has driven advances in the use of specialized concrete mixes for design performance, safe re-use of waste materials in common construction and improvements in ground water remediation techniques.  In 2015, Mr. Easton spoke to an international conference of the American Coal Ash Association regarding the potential of the technology for use in the manufacture of concrete construction materials.

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Average project size quickly expanded to Multi-Family Developments consuming entire City blocks working in the Office of Rich Barber in Phoenix, Arizona.  Mr. Easton led the creation of construction documents for multiple multi-family urban in-fill projects measuring over half a million square feet and garden style apartment complexes across Arizona and New Mexico.  A record of successful Architectural projects and a United States Patent soon led to offers of leadership positions in large National Architecture firms directing large scale projects for entities such as Amazon.com, Griffin Properties, Sunbelt Holdings, Merit Partners, and an invitation to consult for the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program regarding waste to energy technology as it relates to construction material sustainability.  Mr. Easton is now the Principal Architect of the Elk River Studio; he is eager to assist you with all your Architectural Design needs.

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