From High-Rises to Synagogues, Doug Austin Gives a Fresh Look to Each New Project
Across Downtown San Diego, thousands of residential units and close to 2.5 million square feet of commercial buildings are in development.
While more than two dozen architects from design firms in the United States and Canada have contributed their expertise to particular projects, one local architect has given advice to all of them in the past three years.
He’s Doug Austin, chairman and director of design at the Downtown architectural firm of Austin Veum Robbins Parshalle and a just-departed member of the Centre City Development Corp. board of directors.
While he served as vice chairman of the board of directors, he also worked on the CCDC’s construction and design task force for the planned Padres baseball park where he also reviewed designs.
“I tried not to stifle anybody’s creativity,” Austin says. “But I always gave my advice on the building designs they proposed.”
Because there are a variety of architectural styles in Downtown, he didn’t want to push a particular style for the new buildings.
“There are some issues that impact design excellence other than style which are more universal, such as the way the project meets the street and activates the pedestrian experience,” Austin says.
Austin and his architectural firm also have contributed their own designs to development in the San Diego area.
In Downtown, he did the drawings for a full block of urban housing at State and Beech streets called Quatrofantane. It will have buildings that vary from four to 24 stories in height when completed, he says.
He’s also designing the new Children’s Museum of San Diego and a 400-foot-high condominium tower in the 200 block of West Island Avenue.
His company, the third largest architectural firm in San Diego County according to the San Diego Business Journal’s most-recent List of Architectural Firms, employs 94 people, including 36 licensed architects, will be working on a 20-plus story tower at 1111 Kettner Blvd., which will be a mixed commercial and residential project.
Austin will also be working with San Francisco-based Catellus Development Inc. on a high-rise office tower next to the Santa Fe Depot.
He recently completed the design for the Park Laurel high-rise condominiums at Sixth Avenue and Laurel Street near Balboa Park. Other recent projects include a new synagogue for Congregation Beth Israel in the Golden Triangle, the Salvation Army’s Ray and Joan Kroc Community Center in east San Diego, and more than 1 million square feet of office tenant improvement projects now under way around the city.
Austin also is involved in out-of-town projects. Among them are the Church of St. Thomas More in Oceanside, and a 14-story, 200-suite hotel and conference center just completed in Emeryville for San Diego-based Woodfin Suites Hotels.
Born April 23, 1949, at Balboa Naval Hospital, Austin, the son of a Navy chaplain, moved frequently with his parents and three siblings.
Starting when he was 10 days old, he moved first to Pacific Grove, then to El Toro, Newport, R.I., Piedmont, Lakewood and back to Piedmont. After that, they moved to Sunnyvale, Fullerton, Cherry Point, N.C., Kaneohe, Hawaii, and San Luis Obispo.
It was at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo he received an architectural degree in 1971.
“On one hand, moving increases your adaptability, but on the other hand it also makes it tough on making friends,” Austin says. “I was always younger than the other people in my grade and there was always a transition that I had to go through.”
After graduation from Cal Poly, he was hired by the San Diego office of Pasadena-based Neptune & Thomas, where his first project was to help redesign his birthplace , the Balboa Naval Hospital.
After that project, he also designed a number of schools and other institutions.
In 1976, his design of the recreation center for the Trident Submarine Base at Bangor, Wash., won an award from the U.S. Department of Defense.
Austin says he decided to strike out on his own, opening an office in Solana Beach in 1976, because management at Neptune & Thomas wanted him to move to Pasadena.
His first project as an independent architect was a 2,850-square-foot, all-redwood house in Del Mar. He recalls that after all the hours he spent designing the house were added up, he made about $1.25 an hour.
The design won an award from the American Institute of Architects and was also featured in San Diego Home & Garden magazine in 1978.
Since then, Austin and his associates have finished such projects as the Martin Luther King Promenade on Harbor Drive near the San Diego Convention Center and the Marina Court Lofts on Third Avenue and Market Street, also in Downtown.
In addition to the Park Laurel condominium tower, his firm is designing three other high-rise condominium projects in San Diego.
He’s happy to see that San Diego’s construction design community has grown to the point where an all-San Diego team, including architects, engineers and contractors, can build major projects without help from companies from outside of the city.
“I see Downtown becoming a 24-hour city with the advent of all the new housing and expansion of entertainment opportunities,” Austin says. “In the suburbs, people tend to not know their neighbors, but I don’t think that will be the case in the new Downtown.”
His current pet project is designing a three-story, 4,500-square-foot house in Del Mar Terrace for himself, his wife, Wendy, and their children: son Tori, 2 & #733;; son Liam and daughter Taylor, both 10 months old. In the meantime, the family is living in a house at a plant nursery on Black Mountain Road.
Austin, whose hobbies are surfing (15th Street in Del Mar is his favorite beach) and golf, said he also enjoys viewing fine art.
“My son, Tori, is my favorite artist, but my tastes tend to be eclectic, and I collect the artwork done by other architects,” Austin says.
His interest also includes Impressionist painters such as Monet, Renoir, Gauguin and Van Gogh.
His taste in music ranges from Frank Sinatra to Santana, Bonnie Raitt and Amy Grant.
While most of Austin’s reading is in professional journals and magazines, he also likes working brain teasers.
A recent trip to Israel to study places of religious worship came out of his firm’s winning the design contract for the new synagogue for Temple Beth Israel.
“I had just half-finished reading about the building of the second temple in Jerusalem when we heard about the design competition,” Austin says. “That made the entire experience very enjoyable.”
The result was a 65,000-square-foot project that includes a sanctuary, social hall, chapel, administration center and several school buildings. Austin and fellow principal Randy Robbins developed the design.
Stuart Simmons, executive director of Congregation Beth Israel, is enthusiastic about the design.
“They submitted a design concept to us, Doug Austin and Randy Robbins, that was exciting,” Simmons said. “We selected them because not only was the design good, but they were very enthusiastic in their presentation.
“Doug is totally devoted to his work and he clearly wanted this project to be a statement for the San Diego community at large, transcending all faiths. They even traveled to Israel when they were developing the project to look at architecture.”
Simmons said the result is a timeless design that will never be dated.
“Doug is a decent, caring human being who loves his profession and loves his city,” Simmons said.
Sharon Smith, vice president of the San Diego Center for Children, also praised Austin altruism. Austin donated design work for a remodeling and expansion of the Kearny Mesa home for abused and neglected children.
“I met Doug Austin in January of 1999 at a reception and asked him if his firm did any pro bono work,” Smith says. “He indicated they did and offered to design a classroom.”
The conversation also resulted in a tour of the facility for Austin.
“We gave him a tour of the whole campus and he was just overwhelmed and said ‘OK’ to the design project,” Smith says. “He and his firm are now redesigning the entire facility and what they couldn’t do for free, they did at a steep discount for us. He’s not only an incredible architect, but one with a heart.”
As a result of funding by charitable foundations, the project was started.
“Doug is so creative, it just amazes us,” Smith says. “With his help the center is going to look more like a children’s facility than a hospital.”
