In the News

The work and vision of the firm has been widely publicized in a variety of international, national, regional and local publications.

	Sierra High - At Home By David M Brown

Inside Out
By Paul Makovsky

Though privately funded by a client with extremely deep pockets, Hangar One recaptures the romance of air flight that 40 years ago was an integral part of the experience. Like Eero Saarienen’s iconic TWA terminal, the airport uses the metaphor of flight to suggest infinite freedom and possibility. Most of the structures are made of poured concrete, which is elegantly expressed inside. The design pulls different textural elements into the interior space by framing the exterior walls with glass.

	Heavens Gate By Craig Kellogg
	Since it is one thing to dream about owning an aircraft and quite another to find parking for it, there are two lovely hangars at Hangar One (maximum capacity: 14) with mirror-finish white silicone floors. The terminal building offers members’ lounges full of all of the amenities you would find in the VIP clubs at JFK. However, nothing obligates passengers to enter the terminal at all.

The Airport of the New Millennium

This new privately owned American airport, exclusive and rich in comforts, with a seducing architecture, just like the inner spaces it encompasses, where a traveler on a limousine can reach directly the stairs of his/her jet (private or leased) or be welcomed in the lobby by friendly and careful, elegant and well-mannered staff, as in one of the best Hotels of the new millennium, seems to be one of the most interesting new types in the whole country.

	The Robb Report, Vacation Homes-Design Takes Flight By Elizabeth Exline
	"We have exhausted the titillation of bigger and bigger diamonds and nicer cars," posits Vernon D. Swaback, principal of architectural firm Swaback Partners in Scottsdale, Ariz. "We are demanding imagination." If one word could sum up Swaback's design for Scottsdale Hangar One, it would be "imaginative."

The Sky's the Limit, Scottsdale Hangar One redefines high design.
By Elizabeth Exline

Owner Bennett Dorrance bought nearly five acres of land in the Scottsdale Airpark so he could store his collection of planes and vintage automobiles. When he brought architect Vernon Swaback of Scottsdale-based Swaback Partners onto the project however, a bigger vision emerged. "It's well known that there are country clubs for golfers," Swaback explains. "It's not so well known that there is a club for very high-end users of jets." Perhaps that's because Hangar One has no peers. It incorporates rooms most homes don't have-a Quiet Lounge, a car showroom-let along a jet hangar.

	Item Magazine - Hide in Plane Sight By Rachel Gordon
	Originally designed as a storage space for a collection of aircrafts and automobiles, the Vernon Swaback-designed Hangar One proves to be much more. "There is nothing more high performance than jet aircrafts...The whole design of the building expresses that," says Swaback. Sleek metal, concrete, glass and wood are all used to create a sense of fun playfulness within the overall environment.

	Arizona Foothills - A 3-D Flight of Fancy By Elizabeth Exline
	Bennett Dorrance-the heir to the Campbell Soup Company fortune and a managing partner at DMB Associates-doesn't exactly fly coach and why would he, when he owns an ultraluxe, private airplane hangar that boasts some of the most innovative architecture in the Country. Hangar One is exclusive to an extreme you don't often see in this century.

ArchiTech Magazine - Aerial Folly
By Sara Malone

"If we were to ever design planes the way we design buildings, we'd never get them off the ground," noted Vern Swaback, principal of Swaback Partners. "This is a building that, by the nature of its performance and its desire to communicate a 21st-century sense of aircraft and aerodynamics, has been designed with that in mind." "At no point does some notion of fashion overtake that notion of structural integrity in a very architectural way. Hangar One does more with less."

Southwest Contractor Magazine - The Evolution of a Dream
By Vernon D. Swaback, FAIA

From day one it was clear that the opportunity to work with these clients was an architect's dream. They represent a quality of exploration and commitment that goes well beyond the reach of wealth alone. Some of our greatest attention to detail went into making the results appear more effortlessly simple than anything obvious or ostentatious. Achievements of this kind are only possible with a client who is willing to strive for the simplicity that exists on the other side of complexity.

	Modern Steel Magazine - 2004 AISC I.D.E.A.S. Awards National Winner - $10M and greater
	Sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction, the I.D.E.A.S. awards (Innovative Design and Excellence in Architecture with Steel) recognize architectural designs using structural steel as a prominent architectural feature. AISC presented each project's architect with their I.D.E.A.S. award at the AIA 2004 National Convention and Expo in Chicago in June.

American Spa - Desert Tranquility, Spa Avania, Scottsdale, AZ
By Julie Keller

In a desert valley populated with luxury resorts and spas, a unique relaxation destination has arisen at Spa Avania, the new 21,000 -square-foot, $9 million spa at the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort and Spa at Gainey Ranch. "As guests enter and move further into Avania, deeper relaxation sets in to decompress them and transport them fully into their spa experience," says Johnson. "As they depart, guests move back out through zones, which prepare them to face the day."

Estates West - Bolder and Boulder
By David M. Brown

This extraordinary home rose from piles of boulders to become one Arizona family's lovely, livable contemporary residence. Communion with landscape and wildlife is what inspired the Bernhards' 3,950-sq.-ft. home, completed in January 2003 by Chess Pacific Builders of Phoenix. No stranger to home design, Jon is an architect and a partner at Scottsdale's Swaback Partners, the distinguished Arizona architectural firm. Swaback Partners also served as the landscape designer for the Bernhard home, and the firm's supplementary interior design company, Studio V, provided help with the interiors.

Estates West - With Flying Colors
By Kristen Lunceford

For most people, an active imagination, toy paper airplanes and games like pic up stix become things of our past that gather dust beneath the demands of adulthood. For others-like architect Vernon Swaback and designer Adam Tihany-these youthful staples inspire design greatness and, in the case of Hangar One, whimsy and flight. Today the resounding extravagance that is Hangar One is evident upon arrival. In fact, standing before it on a street in the Scottsdale Airpark is a bit like waiting at the gates of Disney's Magic Kingdom, where anticipation is eclipsed only by wonder.

	Luxury Living - Estate of Zen By David M. Brown
	Water, the desert and the Far East play beautifully in and out of this Arizona home. Located on 1.7 acres in Paradise Valley, Arizona, this 8,240-square-foot contemporary estate possesses a Zen-like spirituality. Here, three major themes-water, the desert and the Far East-come together to create a type of "music," as the owners call it, that is pure, sometimes mysterious but always inspiring.

Arizona Food and Lifestyles-Kitchen Ease
By Debbie Taylor Abbott

When Jon C. Bernhard began drawing plans for his second home in Fountain Hills, he weighed all the pros and cons of his first home design carefully. "We learned from the mistakes of our first build, " he explained. This time around, all the "little things" took precedence in the plans. Invisibly incorporated into the structure are important elements that contribute to the success and beauty of this design.

Arizona Foothills-Park Place
By David Brown

Designed by Scottsdale-based Swaback Partners, the $60.0 million plant will treat up to 30-million gallons of water per day. The plant itself will enhance the streetscape, not mega-box it-no small feat given that plants such as these are often windowless masses, aggressing space rather than embracing it. Swaback Partners' design team sees the Chaparral Water Treatment Plant and the park improvements as both model and metaphor.

	City AZ
	Its a far cry from the primitive canvas tent that Vernon Swaback lived in while studying under Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West in Scottsdale. But thanks to that incredible experience, Swaback's expansive north Scottsdale home incorporates tent-like features. "I loved the atmospheric effects of the raw desert," recalls Swaback of his days as a student tent dweller.

	Arizona Foothills-Coming of Age By Karen Flake Werner
	Although Swaback's achievements have been many-from establishing his own firm to designing lavish homes, taking on the restoration and expansion of the Arizona Biltmore to writing several far-reaching books on design-in many ways, his early years have been the leitmotif of his life.

	Arizona Foothills-The Home as High Art By Renee Dee
	According to Swaback, the ability to expand and contract is all a matter of scaled relationship. Nothing is ostentatious, and there is no exaggeration. Everything is a natural response to the human scale. Swaback's client was adamant that, although large, this house was not to be a mere exaggeration that money alone could buy.

	101 North-Master Planner By David Brown
	When he's not designing great buildings, Vernon Swaback is lecturing about his most recent book, "The Creative Community," which shows how well-designed communities work to the benefit of their residents as well as society. According to Swaback "traditional development is a matter of designing to meet codes and ordinances...The Creative Community is designed for life.

Artful Living
By DMB

Great places are as rare in the real world as they are in literature, indeed, as fine art in a world of paint-by-numbers. Creation of such a place starts with respect for nature. We are able to change things almost too easily," says John E. Sather, a principal with Swaback Partners, a leading architectural and land-planning firm. One of Sather's favorite places is the town of Koloa, on the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i.

Professional Builder-Home is a Carpenter's Delight
By Christina Farnsworth

The House Of The Year, also a grand and regional award winner, is this mountain retreat. Set into an Arizona hillside, the home overlooks a clearing framed by ponderosa pine trees. Designed to accommodate a young family and any weekend guests, the Karakahl, as it is called, is a 2,350-square-foot home. It furnishes a great deal of openness in addition to a large measure of privacy for individual study and relaxation.

	Arizona Corridors-Desert Mountain Masterpiece By RaeAnne Marsh
	Wrapping around within the embrace of the mountains, this architectural masterpiece itself embraces magnificent vistas of rugged Sonoran Desert and cultivated golf course. This 9,000-square-foot home in Desert Mountain is long and crescent-shaped, built on different levels to accommodate the stepped-down natural terrain.

	Southwest Passages-A Garden in the Stones By Nora Burba Trulsson
	The home, designed by architect John Sather, AIA, of Scottsdale-based Swaback Partners designed the home's curves and angles to mimic the shape of the rocky slopes. Sather also created the metal gates for the front porch of the home and in the back garden wall.

Fabric Architecture-Shade Oasis
By Janet Cass

Swaback, principal in the Scottsdale, Ariz., firm Swaback Partners pllc, "came to us with the concept and a small model" of his future home and its awnings recalls Dave Fillhouer. The project's scope was large, requiring canopies to shade a guest house, the main house and an outdoor seating area adjacent to a fire pit. One challenge was that, in the architect's words, "the awnings are required to do a lot in the way of cantilevering."

85255-Skyfire
By Suzanne Pickett Martinson

Vernon Swaback, famed architect and Frank Lloyd Wright disciple, melds form and function into the perfect desert retreat. The name Skyfire is an apt description for the North Scottsdale home of accomplished architect Vernon Swaback, his wife Cille and their two teenage daughters. Designed by Swaback and built in 1998, the home is a testament to the architect's philosophy about the importance of architecture existing in partnership with the environment.

	Ahwatukee Magazine-Now Your Talking By Grayton Lee
	Maximizing quality of life and simplicity of care are key elements to The Cottages. This is not formula architecture," Sather says. "We worked off the rich, cultural history of Prescott when designing The Cottages in order to create multiple elevations that all come together with a visual harmony." The attention to detail with respect to design, workmanship and materials is outstanding.

	A Curve in the Desert By Nora Burba Trulsson
	When the McCulloughs approached Scottsdale architect Vernon Swaback, FAIA, FAICP, to design the house, their conversations leaned toward concepts and ideas, rather than toward exact plans and specific elevations. It was up to Swaback and his partner, Jon Bernhard, to turn these ideas into a home. The curving, rounded forms of the boulders on the site proved to be an inspiration for the design.