Willis Pember Architects

04/19/2026

Williams Tsein, neuroscience institute, 1998-2012

03/24/2026

on the boards. Building AH housing, one unit at a time.
looking for final Town Council approval on May 12. With exterior improvements, revised circulation, and a third floor expansion.

with Rawley Design Planning and Landscape Architects, Greg Watts.

01/10/2026

Honoring Greg N. Watts, 1958-2025. He was a longstanding collaborator and accomplished photographer assisting in multiple architectural projects for WPA. Greg’s dedication, expertise, and effort will be missed. Examples of his work: Aspen Alps 215, Carbondale Branch Library, Race Alley Cabins, and the man himself. His warmth, generosity, and dedication to his craft was well known. Friends to all.

10/01/2025

08/01/2025

A paste-up of WPA skins over the last several years, all from the Aspen, CO area. Layering, depth, contrast, detail, pattern, scale, color, movement, and performance.

07/02/2025

A built competition entry completed in 2001. Twenty-four years later we have new pavilion graphics thanks to Ajax Design, Art Burrows, City of Aspen Parks, and the Aspen Historical Society! The project received multiple local, regional and state-wide design awards, including landscape architecture and mechanical engineering. Second commercial use of Photovoltaics in Colorado, which plays on the myth (reality?) of Aspen as the first state in Colorado to generate their own electricity. Designed as an architectural 'edge' condition and urban narrative on green building, sustainable design and local history. All before USGBC and LEED. Published in Architectural Record, and others. (old graphic walls pictured, link to new graphics article below)

06/20/2025

Aspen Mountain Townhomes, 623 S Monarch St _three-townhouse condominium. Fun project with interesting owners. The skin work led to interior renovations of all 3 units. 2016-17. Re-use, re-purpose, re-invent, and re-skin.
photography (first three images)_Ross Cooperwaithe, Cooperwaithe Productions.

03/07/2025

Photo taken this week of 340 Monastery Cutoff, Snowmass, CO. A rural site with dramatic overlooks on three sides. This enclosure manages sightlines to Sopris Mountain, the former Benedictine Monastery in Old Snowmass, the Snowmass ski area and the Elk Mountain Range. Photo by Greg Watts Photography.

02/03/2025

Some recent bathroom photos from two different residential projects; brass, black, and stainless fixtures with water-resistant plaster, stone, and wood surfaces.
First image: Greg Watts, Photographer. Images 2,3,4: Reagan Taylor, Photographer. Rudd Construction: images 2,3,4, SH Built and Yates Construction: image #1

11/03/2024

Carbondale branch library, Carbondale, CO.
Willis Pember Architects, 2013.
iphoto view of public reading porch_yesterday afternoon

10/30/2024

The West End addition to the Red Brick Center for the Arts is a small, 1,200SF addition to a community arts center, that's had an outsized influence on Aspen's cultural life. The main structure is 35,000SF and includes offices for local non-profits and artist studios.
The addition created the first public spaces - a shared conference room, and double height lounge, along with a 200' long hallway repurposed as an art gallery. Lively gallery openings are well attended.

Sun control devices include vertical louvers for Western exposure, horizontal louvers for Southern exposure, and a rain screen pulled away from the facade. WPA was responsible for all interior, exterior and landscape architecture.

Designed in 2003, completed in 2007. This project received an AIA CO West Honor award in 2008 and an AIA CO Citation award in 2009 – head juror Deborah Berke, Yale University.

photo credits: Interiors - David O. Marlow Photography. Exteriors - Patrick Sudmeier Photography, Greg Watts Photography, and Willis Pember, AIA.

10/16/2024

WPA's first project in Aspen, CO_Aspen Smallworks, was an interior tenant fit-out, and corporate think-tank for Sun Microsystem co-founder William Joy. SUN microsystems, named after Stanford University Network, was notable for high performance computing, open source software, and Unix operating systems. 'Java' was notably created in these Aspen offices. Sun Micro was sold to Oracle in 2009 for $5.6B.
Aspen Smallworks received a State of CO AIA award in 1994, the same year DIA (Denver International Airport) was recognized.
(with Suzannah Reid, photographs by Robert Millman and Patrick Sudmeier. drawings by Willis Pember_ink on mylar)