There is slick architecture, and then there is living, breathing design no one is afraid to touch. DRAW Architecture aims for the latter, with as much of the former as circumstances will allow. The mid-sized firm of about 12 or so operates out of the Crossroads, a KCMO neighborhood alive with creativity, cuisine, and coffee. Says Dominique Davison, who founded the firm under her own name in 2005, “We’re right behind the art store, just down from the coffee shop, and next to the Thai noodle place.” The area is bustling with architecture firms, too, which fosters a culture of healthy competition that keeps everyone sharp. Dan Maginn, FAIA, was part of that competition until three years ago, when he joined Dominique’s enterprise, attracted by its mission of “empathy and activism.”
Dominique Davison. Portraits: Dan Videtich
With a mix of adaptive reuse, renovation, and new construction projects of all types, the diverse practice celebrates the city’s urban grit—never seeking to erase the character lines that come of history, location, or tough budgets. “You know, Missouri has St. Louis on one side and us on the other. They like to refer to themselves as the ‘western most eastern city.’ But we’re like the first western city,” says Dan. “There’s a little bit of a grit here that we embrace—a bit of urban edge that we try to combine while achieving an elegance.”
Dan Maginn
Dan has a gift for words—precise, evocative, and funny. It was a talent that served him well as a cofounder of el dorado, a design/build firm also known for its humor and edgy urban appeal, along with his design chops and solid business skills. Dan came aboard Dominique’s firm at a time when it was struggling with its own success. She needed more methodology to manage the madness. “Four years ago, when I started to talk with Dan, the office was getting larger and the projects more complex,” she recalls. “I knew that my strengths were not on the operational side. When you’re running the business and trying to bring in the business, it’s tough to be also thinking about how to get it all done. Dan is great at being able to get things done. And he’s great in his marketing ability.”
Her last statement is really an understatement, and that’s obvious the moment you pull up their website. El dorado also had a snappy website that captured the quirky spirit of the firm and honed its image as a creative powerhouse, but one that was very approachable. DRAW’s website, produced by Dan and his wife, Keri Maginn, who is director of operations at the firm, is even better. Filled with loose, fun, but highly polished visuals, it communicates brilliantly the heart, soul, and deep good nature of the principals and staff. And, of course, it’s funny—very funny. Most important, though, it’s disarming—deftly purging any intimidation a potential client might feel in hiring an architect. You want to have a beer with them, and you want them to design your house—or any other building you might have in mind.
Good Turns
Dominique’s passion is for architecture that intersects with urbanism—no matter what the building type or scale. She’s a Californian who went to Berkeley and then Yale for architecture. Which begs the question, how did she end up in Kansas City? “I met a boy from Kansas,” she says. “And we would come to visit. One day, we were sitting in one of the coolest neighborhoods—39th Street—eating pizza. And I said, ‘This is awful pizza. But I really love it here.”
That boy, now Dominique’s husband, was a friend of Dan’s from Tulane. Pull threads just a little, and it seems like all the creative people in Kansas City know each other, or work near each other, or have worked for each other. “One of the things that appealed to me about the city after school is that the design culture here is really, really strong,” Dan explains. “There are a dozen firms in town that you could quickly think of that are interested in achieving design excellence. That culture is supported. You see your peer firms doing great work, and that makes you want to do even better work.”
That design culture fuels many of the firm’s residential clients. They are artists and collectors, culturally savvy and intellectually curious. The budgets, however, are generally less expansive than the clients’ vision. “All of our projects are in a pretty affordable range—somewhere between $180 to $300 a square foot at the most. We’re always dealing with constraints,” says Dominique.
She points to the Quackenbush project, a house and standalone art studio the firm designed in a neighborhood of $15,000 lots, as an example: “We have to be conscious about materials and providing owners what they’re looking for. But we have an interest in affordable housing and in providing a comfortable, gracious home for a homeowner, or for a customer who has never built custom before. We’re not known for doing the super-big-budget house.”
What the team accomplished on this project, though, made all the difference for the clients. They were able to angle the buildings off the street grid to capture spectacular views of the city skyline. For an artist, that inspiration is everything. Even the space between the buildings has become precious to the couple.
“Dan talks about how we’re like journalists—getting to understand people, and their relationship and what drives them,” says Dominique. “If you do your job well, you get very intimate with other people—without it being weird.”
Twisting the new Quackenbush house and studio off the street grid resulted in fantastic city views and some very happy clients. All project photos: Mark Sinclair
Sometimes it’s the house that’s weird. It took a couple with rarefied tastes to see the potential of a 1970s octagonal house with a looming mansard roofline in Mission Hills, Kan. They are collectors of unusual period furniture—from the 1940s to the 1980s—so they appreciated the odd time capsule of a house. What they needed from DRAW was careful curation of the home’s eccentricities, and updates to make it livable for a modern family. The team’s sensitive touches recast the Heitz-Sylvester Residence from goofball character to high-style showplace.
“This was a case of really great clients who recognized there was something unique in this house that they could bring out,” Dan explains. “If you’re interested in other decades, you can embrace the mystery of another time. I don’t know what the ’50s were like, but I do understand the ’70s. There was a real mystery about what was influencing the era. There was an Asian influence, there was a dragon motif, there was the influence of alcohol that called for its own little shrine off the main living area. The original house was a tired, weird example from a strange era in our history.
“But instead of immediately judging it, we try to calm down and listen,” he continues. “That’s what happened on this house. The clients hired us because we showed an appreciation for what was there. We knew we could amplify and sharpen some of the quirks—we knew what to remove and what to amend.”
The 1970s Heitz-Sylvester residence has its cool renewed with DRAW’s careful curation of its campy kitsch.
The firm applied a similar process to the McGrath Residence, an intensely urban building from the late 1800s in a transitional neighborhood. The owners were also art collectors, drawn to the location for its walkability and proximity to the performing arts center. “This project, like many of the ones we do, was about how do we showcase the owners’ art,” says Dominique. And in the process of that exploration, the house itself became a focus of creative energy.
“It was just a shell of a building and quite derelict inside. It was a sort of apartment building that our clients wanted to make into a three-story, single-family residence,” she recalls. “Ultimately, it was like an archaeology project, as we started uncovering walls to find beautiful patina of brick. In the bathrooms, we let the plaster fall off the walls to show the brick underneath.
“And then,” she continues, “we had to solve the problem of the building’s setback. It’s right on the sidewalk. We wanted to create some privacy and shade. So we commissioned a metal screen for the front façade.” Says Dan, “We worked with a great artist, Jesse Small. It’s really an example of where art and architecture go hand in hand.” And, it’s a perfect example of the firm’s deft balance of grit and polish.
For the McGrath townhouse renovation with scant setback from the sidewalk, the architects commissioned a custom metal screen for shade, privacy, and a touch of gritty elegance.
Open for Design
Whether the project is new construction or a substantial remodel, DRAW’s goal is for an authentic result that engages and moves people, a place for people to “gather and connect.” Currently on the boards are market-rate multifamily projects, custom houses, and community and civic work, including a new airport terminal they’re designing with SOM.
The range is impressive, and DRAW feels up to the pace and ambition of the portfolio—even if it means Dan can’t design as much as he used to. “Cross-pollination is our secret ingredient,” he says, then pauses for a moment of self-reflection: “When a firm reaches a certain size, you may quit being able to design as much. Or, you can challenge that notion, and suggest that while you might be designing less on the boards, you’re designing how you document who’s working on what, how you tell your story to others. I was influenced by the Eameses, who thought everything is open for design—including information systems.” —S. Claire Conroy
Other Houses by DRAW
Day Residence
Leawood, Kans.
From the firm:
The design for this home in an established mid-century neighborhood in Leawood stems from a careful analysis of the site and the owners’ needs. Its form loosely derives from the lines of a “shotgun” house, a traditional residential style in which circulation along an exterior wall connects living spaces arrayed from public to private.
Responding to the owner’s request for a semi-contained courtyard, the “shotgun” rotates around this central exterior space, creating dynamic living spaces, each directly connected to the exterior. The home’s form was also directly influenced by energy and daylight modeling, which maximizes filtered natural light and takes full advantage of prevailing breezes.
Combined with exceptional insulation levels, the home will allow the occupants to keep energy costs to a minimum. Other features include obscure interior glazing in bedrooms to “borrow” light from public areas, and the usage of interior wood cladding taken from a barn that was being demolished on a family farm.
Wellsville Residence
Wellsville, Kans.
From the firm:
This contemporary farm house located in rural Kansas outside of Kansas City, is the retreat for our interior design collaborator, Connie Drees, and her husband, Brad Drees. The concept of the home’s form was to transition an iconic farm house (two story gable) to a vaulted single story space through a modern insert, referencing what we define as an updated vernacular. The home feels very much at home in its landscape, but is simultaneously clearly of its time.
The process was rather unconventional. Beginning as a renovation, the project shifted to new construction when the owner changed building site locations. Happy with the direction the design was taking, however, the owner wanted to keep the initial footprint of the original design and build new based on this design and footprint. Pulling from inspiration of the surrounding farm houses and barns, the building has an open and light-filled interior.
