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American Health Facilities Development (AHFD) is a partner we’ve worked with on hundreds of projects over the years and an association that precedes the founding of JJCA. The relationship goes back to the early eighties when JJCA founding partner Ed Johnson began providing architectural and planning services to AHFD’s major clients. Over the years, the relationship has thrived, with Ed passing the torch to son David Johnson as JJCA has become AHFD’s preferred architect firm for masterplanning services. Exley Hill, AHFD’s president, explains that it’s unusual to get the kind of time and attention he receives directly from a firm’s principal – particularly someone with such considerable experience. Working with a smaller firm, Exley says, is great because “a question or issue doesn’t have to travel far to get attention.” The folks at JJCA, he says, are like family.

Steve Grode, VP of Planning at AHFD, has worked on numerous projects with David Johnson for almost a decade. He says he’s never given David a problem he can’t solve and it seems there is a friendly competition between them to see who can come up with the most creative solutions. Steve says he himself is a pretty creative guy but David is able to surpass him time and again. Steve cites Sparks Regional Medical Center as a great example of a situation he thought would stump David. The challenge was to take this older hospital – spread over several blocks, separated from the main thoroughfare by rundown and abandoned buildings, and under which major city underground communication lines are located – and radically enhance service, visibility and accessibility. Well, you guessed it, David succeeded. He literally “turned things around” for the hospital and the community of Ft. Smith, Arkansas. He reoriented the hospital towards a major thoroughfare by creating a fabulous new entrance into a wonderfully modernized facility.

Thanks to Exley Hill, Steve Grode, John Albert and all the great folks at AHFD for a great partnership. Here’s to our next 20 years!

Often, great things happen as a result of the most casual of conversations. JJCA’s very first project is a great example of this. When founding partner Ed Johnson happened upon his friend Blair Stephens at Wendy’s one afternoon back in 1991 they had a fairly brief exchange that probably went something like this:

Ed: “Hi Blair – I’m not sure I’ve seen you since we opened the doors of our new firm, Johnson Johnson Crabtree Architects.

Blair: “Oh,– that’s great. I know you’ll do well. In fact, I have something you might want to work on.”

As it turns out, Blair was the chair of the building committee at Webb School, a 250 student boarding and day school located in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. The school had just received a generous gift from William Bond Jr. and the school wanted to use the contribution to provide its students with access to college level resources. They felt a state-of-the-art library would be the first step in upgrading the campus environment to stimulate enrollment.

Ed was, in fact, quite interested in designing the library and it became one of JJCA’s earliest projects. The project provided a great opportunity to hone skills that have become cornerstones in JJCA design, like paying considerable attention to creating warm and inviting spaces that not only achieve their functional purpose but make users of the space feel truly comfortable there. The combination of natural materials, abundant lighting, and a soft and inviting environment have made the library a Webb student favorite as both study and on campus living-room for two decades.

Just ask JJCA’s own Rachael Spangler, Webb School class of 2001, who provides a true student perspective on the library. She says the library was just as popular a gathering place as the student center, in fact she has fond memories of curling up on the couch for a nap in front of the library’s fireplace on cold winter days. Rachael notes that it was apparent to her even back then that the library had been well-designed for monitoring potentially wayward students. Expansive glass wall openings made it much easier for a single librarian to keep an eye on students, at least most of the time. She says she and her friends were able to slip in a few games of little low-stakes Texas Hold’em between hands of Spades. But Rachael’s best memory of the William W. Bond Library? She met her husband there!