Ken Martin, AIA, NCARB, has joined Leo A Daly to lead its Dallas office as Vice President and Managing Partner.
Most of Martin’s 25-plus-year career in design, planning, and management has focused on hospitality, which happens to be the Dallas office’s largest market. He joins Leo A Daly from DLR Group, where he was that firm’s hospitality and convention center expert. He reports to COO John Kraskiewicz.
Martin assumes his new post at a time when Leo A Daly has several large-scale hospitality-design projects in the works or just completed. These include the five-star 285-room Hotel Talisa in Vail, Colo.; the 582-room Ritz-Carlton Orlando Grande Lakes in Florida; and the 12-story 333-room Marriott Downtown Omaha in Nebraska, which opened last month as the first phase of that city’s entertainment Capitol District.
“Hospitality, I would argue, leads a lot of innovation,” says Martin in a video that Leo A Daly released to announce his hiring. “You cannot be reactive in this business.”
He praises his new employer as “one of the preeminent design firms in the hospitality industry,” and talks about the importance of sustainability and meeting guest expectations in hospitality design.
In a recent article he wrote for Hotel Business Review, Martin shared his thoughts about adaptive reuse as “a key piece of many [hotel] brands’ strategy,” and how authenticity in the redesign of existing buildings is “something of the Holy Grail.” On such projects, Martin said he asks the following questions to guide his teams’ designs: “What has that neighborhood been? Where is it going? Culturally, what are the drivers, and who are our local patrons going to be? What do they value? Who are the guests, why are they traveling to this city (or this neighborhood), and what are they looking for? That is to say: How do you integrate?”
Ken Martin was considering his professional legacy when, at 50, he switched firms. Image: Leo A Daly
Martin began his career as a museum exhibit designer for University of New Mexico, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture. He spent nearly 27 years with DLR Group, rising to the level of Principal and National Hospitality Leader. One of the projects he was working on for DLR before he left was the renovation of the 16-story, 250-room Laylow Hotel by Marriott Autograph in Waikiki, Hawaii.
The 50-year-old Martin tells BD+C that several factors drove his decision to switch firms. For one thing, he and his wife are recent empty nesters, which gave them flexibility to relocate.
Martin was also giving more thought to his professional legacy. “I know there are is a finite number of projects I’ll get to do. So you start to ask yourself—blue sky—how can I make the biggest impact?”
He became aware that Leo A Daly was looking for a managing principal as Patricia Miller, its corporate director of hospitality, was moving into a global practice leader role for the firm. During the interview process, Martin was impressed with the projects that Leo A Daly was working on “that hint at a new level of design for the firm. This is a place where I can do signature work.”
He says that he brings a different approach to architectural programming and design, having been on the front end of DLR’s large conference center/hotel projects.
Leo A Daly is strong in the civic market. And there are other specialties across its 30 offices “that are begging to be infused with hospitality design and energy,” says Martin. The convention center/hotel sector is one of these; global healthcare and aviation are two others.
“Enlisting the strength of our hospitality teams in those projects and pursuits is a great avenue to doing great work,” says Martin.
Related Stories
| Nov 27, 2013
Wonder walls: 13 choices for the building envelope
BD+C editors present a roundup of the latest technologies and applications in exterior wall systems, from a tapered metal wall installation in Oklahoma to a textured precast concrete solution in North Carolina.
| Nov 27, 2013
University reconstruction projects: The 5 keys to success
This AIA CES Discovery course discusses the environmental, economic, and market pressures affecting facility planning for universities and colleges, and outlines current approaches to renovations for critical academic spaces.
| Nov 26, 2013
7 ways to make your firm more successful
Like all professional services businesses, AEC firms are challenged to effectively manage people. And even though people can be rather unpredictable, a firm’s success doesn’t have to be. Here are seven ways to make your firm more successful in the face of market variability and uncertainty.
| Nov 26, 2013
Design-build downsized: Applying the design-build method in an era of smaller projects
Any project can benefit from the collaborative spirit and cooperative relationships embodied by design-build. But is there a point of diminishing return where the design-build project delivery model just doesn't make sense for small projects? Design-build expert Lisa Cooley debates the issue.
| Nov 25, 2013
Electronic plan review: Coming soon to a city near you?
With all the effort AEC professionals put into leveraging technology to communicate digitally on projects, it is a shame that there is often one major road block that becomes the paper in their otherwise “paperless” project: the local city planning and permitting department.
| Nov 22, 2013
Kieran Timberlake, PE International develop BIM tool for green building life cycle assessment
Kieran Timberlake and PE International have developed Tally, an analysis tool to help BIM users keep better score of their projects’ complete environmental footprints.
| Nov 20, 2013
Architecture Billings Index slows in October; project inquiries stay strong
Following three months of accelerating demand for design services, the Architecture Billings Index reflected a somewhat slower pace of growth in October. The October ABI score was 51.6, down from a mark of 54.3 in September.
| Nov 19, 2013
Pediatric design in an adult hospital setting
Freestanding pediatric facilities have operational and physical characteristics that differ from those of adult facilities.
| Nov 18, 2013
6 checkpoints when designing a pediatric healthcare unit
As more time and money is devoted to neonatal and pediatric research, evidence-based design is playing an increasingly crucial role in the development of healthcare facilities for children. Here are six important factors AEC firms should consider when designing pediatric healthcare facilities.
| Nov 18, 2013
Lord Aeck Sargent opens metro D.C. office, updates brand
Architecture, design, and planning firm unveils its sixth office, plus a new visual identity system and website