Albert Ray
Firm: Hollis and Miller Architects
Title: Higher Education Market Leader
Alma mater: Kansas State University
Hometown: Kansas City, MO
Why did you go into your chosen field?
My love for science, drawing and sports initially. I used to draw Royals Stadium (now Kaufmann Stadium) from the media guide photos. I was always intrigued by the form and the scale that was so widely different from every angle you experience it. From there, passion for improving my community started with mowing grass and cleaning up on my own block. Friends used to tease me about getting on them for littering “in the hood”! But they changed… and they still tease me about that! Currently my involvement with education connects on personal and professional levels that allows me to contribute to shaping the communities through observing and connecting people through shared desires for positive change.
What gives you motivation to progress your design career?
The desire to see overlooked communities be empowered to change their fortunes. Our role as designers is to be the connective tissue of physical, health, educational, legal, financial and social environments. Using our vision for change.
What is your most meaningful project, and why?
Kansas State Multicultural Center was a chance to design at my alma mater. I wanted to be a part of collecting students’ voices and echoing those voices through expressions of form, materials, and visibility. The building is a metaphor of the dialog that the multicultural students have with the greater campus. We may appear different on the surface, but at our core, we must be here for each other.
