VMDO Architects

Ryan hails from the Midwest and while he has strong roots there, his extensive travel of the world is what shaped his appreciation for site and place and, ultimately, led him to a life in architecture. With an undergraduate degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Ryan comes to VMDO by way of University of Virginia where he received his Master of Architecture. An avid yard warrior and furniture crafter, Ryan will try to make it himself before he has to buy it, which he believes is a good counterbalance to the inevitable time spent in front of a computer screen. Other constructive counterbalances? Cigars, a good scotch, the search for relentless optimism, and managing two powerful children.

Ryan is drawn to the unexplainable; he doesn’t need to see it to believe it exists. Sometimes a story can make it so, and, in Ryan’s words, “People have always told stories; it is how history is remembered. Architecture lends physical, sometimes permanent, form to storytelling”.