Rick Joy


Rick Joy is an American architect. Rick Joy is Principal of Studio Rick Joy, an architecture and planning firm established in 1993 in Tucson, Arizona.

Early life

Joy was born in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine. He studied music at the University of Maine before studying architecture at the University of Arizona, graduating in 1990. His architectural career began with a 3-year appointment on the design team of the Phoenix Public Library with Will Bruder Architects.

Career and recognition

In 1993, Joy established Rick Joy Architects in Tucson, Arizona. The firm, owned and operated by Joy, changed its name to Studio Rick Joy in 2019 and had a staff of thirty as of that year. The work of Studio Rick Joy ranges from high-concept contemporary design to traditional architectural and master planning services. Many of the firm's works have been exhibited, published, and awarded. Joy received the 2002 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Architecture and in 2004 won the prestigious National Design Award from the Smithsonian Institution/Cooper-Hewitt Museum. In 2019, he was inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame. The firm has gained substantial international recognition, has participated in multiple exhibitions, and has been featured in over 150 publications worldwide. Joy has lectured extensively throughout the United States and around the globe and is considered an important contributor to the ongoing global discourse on modern architecture. He periodically serves as a visiting professor of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Rice University, University of Arizona, and M.I.T. In 2002, Joy's first monograph was published under the title Desert Works, as the first in the Princeton Architectural Press/Graham Foundation invited New Voices in Architecture series.
The firm's extensive experience with lifestyle based projects encompasses a wide range of project types and locations. Early residential projects in the desert southwest frequently employed rammed earth, steel and concrete in the design. Expanding into different climates and cultural places has led to new formal responses and a diverse, locally grounded material palette. The firm has realized architectural residences in regions such as mountains in Idaho, forests in Vermont, and an urban loft in the heart of Manhattan.
In the late 2010s, the firm began to expand its work to new types of sites, like the islands of Turks and Caicos and Ibiza and completed its first civic project, a transit hall and market on the Princeton University Campus. It also began to work at a large scale, with projects such as a luxury resort for Aman Resorts in southern Utah with I-10 Studio, the St. Edward's University Campus Chapel and Holy Cross Institute Complex, the 9 story housing block for the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, the master planning of new towns in Mexico and Utah, new master planning in York, Maine and Le Massif, Canada, a 1.3 million square foot mixed-use development in Tucson, Arizona.

Major works

Awards include: