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James Mason Joins Platt/Whitelaw Architects

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Senior Project Coordinator Excels at Community-Based Architecture

The Platt/Whitelaw team is a tapestry of diverse backgrounds and talents. Our newest member, James Mason, adds a unique thread to our rich fabric. James has a passion for creating exceptional spaces and a portfolio of people-centric projects that both anchor and elevate their surrounding communities.

“Throughout my career, I’ve been privileged to work on a multitude of community serving projects from start to finish,” James said. From programming and design through construction and closeout, the entirety of James’ career has centered on bringing public and community-based projects to life.

He joins our firm as a senior project coordinator.

A Path to Serving Others

James’ interest in design was sparked in high school. While he harbored an interest in art, his limited drawing skills posed a hurdle. His mother’s keen eye and wisdom would set him on a different path.

“She suggested I take drafting so I could use a straight edge,” James joked. “I never looked back.”

Raised in the Lone Star State, James studied architecture at the University of Texas, San Antonio, where he met his wife, Rita, a Carlsbad native. Early in his career, he gravitated toward public projects. While he doesn’t consider this an intentional choice, it’s one he’s wholly embraced.

Over his 20+ year career, he’s worked closely with local groups and organizations to ensure the schools, libraries, life safety facilities, hospitals and other spaces he’s designed positively impact communities.

When asked about his proudest career moment, James pauses. He then describes the wonder and awe he witnessed when children — and adults alike — entered the Texas State Aquarium’s Caribbean Journey. The 71,000-sqaure-foot exhibit had been decades in the making. In 2017, right before James relocated to San Diego, the aquarium’s epic adventure through coastal forests, Mayan Ruins, a shipwreck and coral reefs opened to the public. James had successfully brought the human and animal worlds together.

James says he also cherishes memories at school opening, and reopening, events when school principals couldn’t contain their tears of joy. They knew the new spaces would profoundly impact student lives.

Strengthening the local community

Coming from a larger firm solely focused on educational design, James was drawn to Platt/Whitelaw’s diversity of projects, more personal and engaging work environment and tangible community impact.

Today, he works closely with the County of San Diego to transform behavioral healthcare services. He leads the East Region Crisis Stabilization Unit project. It’s a center, in the heart of downtown El Cajon, that will provide individuals with immediate mental health and substance abuse support and treatment services in a therapeutic setting.

Simultaneously, he leads the restoration of the Old Logan Heights Library building. The project requires a delicate balance to preserve its historical integrity while ensuring modern usability and accessibility.

Committed to Protecting the Past

Beyond his design pursuits, James finds fulfillment in preserving his community’s history through both its architectural and human connections. James spent many years with the San Antonio Conservation Society helping safeguard the city’s residential structures over a century old. Today, he connects with his aging, often isolated, neighbors in Oceanside by volunteering with Meals on Wheels.

Teaching Toward an Inclusive Architecture Industry

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Yolanda Velazco, a top-notch designer at Platt/Whitelaw, is more than just an architecture instructor teaching at Southwestern College.

Having grown up in Mexico, and even having attended Southwestern College herself, Yolanda knows that navigating a college experience in a different country comes with a learning curve. Many of her students at Southwestern College grew up in Mexico.

Un-clashing cultures

“They’re coming from a different system, and there’s culture shock, too, even though we’re a border city,” said Yolanda. “Many know some English, but I can see how they struggle when they try to get into classes and things like that. I can help provide more than just an architectural education because I understand what they’re going through.”

She has provided this help through her stints teaching Studio 1, Studio 2 and Introduction to Architecture at Southwestern College in Chula Vista. This fall will mark her third semester of teaching.

“I’ve taught students of all ages and from very diverse backgrounds,” she said. “Some of my students are older than me. Some already finished their degree in architecture in Mexico. Regardless, I try to focus on how the system works as much as how to design.”

Yolanda says that she and some of her fellow teaching instructors have thought about creating a class focused on the differences between architecture in the U.S. and in Mexico, because those differences can be so stark.

Well-rounded education

Yolanda was surprised that the Introduction to Architecture class became her favorite to teach, even though the studio classes inspire her when her students push the boundaries of design and present new ideas.

“I share a lot of my experiences in the Introduction to Architecture class, and we talk about every aspect of what they may find themselves doing with an architecture education,” she said.

A lot of the course is driven by questions from the students themselves.

“I want them to feel more comfortable and informed about the decision they’re making,” she added. “I don’t want them to be scared, but I try to be realistic. I think about what I would have liked to know as a student.”

Fortunately, it’s a student body that’s not likely to scare easily.

“My students are super hard workers. Most are attending school while working full time,” said Yolanda.

Breaking barriers

While their drive is admirable, the students’ economic circumstances can be daunting when they think about supplementing the two-year associate degree they can earn at Southwestern College with a follow-on, baccalaureate degree.

“The closest public college they can attend to earn that full degree is California State University Pomona,” said Yolanda, who is a graduate of that program. “It’s difficult to get in, even as a transfer. You submit your portfolio, and based on that, they could send you down to first year, which would mean you’d still have to do five years of study.”

NewSchool of Architecture & Design is in San Diego, but it’s private and may be cost-prohibitive for some. If Southwestern students want to pursue a four- or five-year degree at either institution, they will need to pay rent if living away from family and will probably have less hours to work a job.

It’s this plight that has inspired Southwestern College to apply for the right to offer a baccalaureate degree (four- or five-year degree) in Architecture. Time will tell if the effort succeeds.

“We’ve been creating an elite major,” says Yolanda. She’s concerned that barriers exist to getting more minorities and people of color into architecture.

“Coming to Platt/Whitelaw made me feel comfortable because its leadership is diverse,” she said, but she added that it hadn’t been her impression of most architecture firms she had encountered.

Platt/Whitelaw Architects Principal Naveen Waney said, “Yolanda is a creative, motivated, strong-minded person. Once she gets something in her head, she will make sure she explores the subject to the fullest and returns with a responsive solution. That’s a trait you cannot teach and makes her a great teacher for budding architects.”

Words of advice

Yolanda also wants to make sure that architecture students master foundational skills.

“I feel with the technology and all tools available now, we’re losing the basics,” she said. “As a student, it’s hard to understand why hand drafting is important, but you always need to know the basics first to effectively use technology as a tool. I feel like I get picky about how graphics should look and plans should read, but those are your instructions to the person who’s going to build it.”

She added one last piece of advice for up-and-coming architects.

“You’re not supposed to know it all. Ask questions. There’s so much information out there.”

Envisioning San Diego’s New Oak Park Library

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Leveraging Platt/Whitelaw’s Library Architectural Design Experience

In the late 1960s, our firm’s founder, Robert Platt, designed the Oak Park Library on 54th Street. More than 50 years later, we’re again serving the communities of Oak Park, Webster and Chollas Creek by helping to create a new library.

Next Steps for the Oak Park Library

Platt/Whitelaw Architects is working hand-in-hand with the City of San Diego, with input from the Friends of the Oak Park Library, to craft a request for proposals (RFP) for the design and construction of a brand-new library.

The new and larger library will be built less than a mile away on a greenfield site the city owns just southwest of Chollas Lake Park. It sits just west of the city’s operations yard on College Grove Drive.

The city received state funding for the 20,000-square-foot library as well as a 10,000-square foot sorting facility.

Designing a Library Sorting Facility

The sorting facility serves the entire City of San Diego Library system and replaces one currently at the city’s operations yard. Returned books from all the city’s libraries are sent here, fed into a system of scanners, conveyor belts, levers and chutes and then redistributed to libraries.

This unique building requires accessible loading docks and easy circulation without negatively impacting the views and experience at the adjacent library.

Architects writing RFPs

It’s uncommon for an architecture firm to be hired to craft a public agency RFP, but the city saw the wisdom in it for a couple of reasons.

The city hired Platt/Whitelaw partly because of the steep site. The buildings must be configured and sited carefully, and a new traffic light and driveway is required for access and circulation. Involving an architect early in the process will provide additional clarity for the design-build team ultimately selected.

Another reason to hire us is community outreach. Friends of the Oak Park Library is a very active library booster group, and the city wanted a team familiar with not just library architecture but also with leading public outreach and design charettes. The city knew this collaboration between Platt/Whitelaw and the Friends group would elevate the library vision articulated in the RFP.

The resulting library design and space planning program requested in the RFP specifies an idea/maker lab, computer stations spaced throughout the library, multiple study rooms and a homework room. Lacking a large community room or a place for kids to hangout nearby, Friends of the Oak Park Library advocated for the 3,250-square-foot multi-purpose room that we included also.

Design/build teams responding to the RFP will be asked to incorporate public art inside and outside the library. They will also need to provide space for displays in the library lobby.

Community Engagement and Far-Out Ideas

Someday, thanks to an idea from one Friends of Oak Park Library member, the site may also include an observatory. While the cost exceeds what the city has available to spend now, the RFP asks the design-build team to set aside space for an observatory in the future.

The idea was inspired by a similar library-observatory facility in Riverside County, California that was created to provide children from underserved communities a chance to experience astronomy, astrophysics and more.

Teamwork and Shared Visions

The RFP for the Oak Park Library and sorting facility is scheduled for release this fall. While our firm can’t submit for the project work, our Oak Park Library RFP team of Peter Soutowood and Emad Abdulwajid is proud to play an important part in its vision.

From the original Oak Park Library architect Robert Platt to the designers energizing our firm more than 50 years later, our staff cares deeply about designing libraries and other community facilities.

We’d like to conclude by recognizing some of the people who were instrumental in securing the funding for the new Oak Park Library: Claudine Thompson, Senate President pro Tem Toni Atkins and Assemblywoman Dr. Akilah Weber, who grew up in Oak Park. We’d also like to thank Monica Arredondo and Abdirahman Osman at the City of San Diego as well as Misty Jones, the San Diego Public Library Director.

 

Culturally Centric Design for Memory Care Facilities

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Many of our designers started as students at NewSchool of Architecture & Design. Some of our staff taught at NewSchool, and we have a long history of taking on NewSchool interns. We’re proud to announce that Emad Abdulwajid, our most recent NewSchool intern, is now our newest full-time staff member!

Emad just completed his senior thesis, and it’s a great example of why we think so highly of both Emad and NewSchool.

Emad’s thesis imagined an architectural plan for a memory care facility tailored to Indian immigrants.

From a design perspective, memory care facilities in the U.S., according to Emad, “usually cater to the culture they’re in, but the U.S. is a melting pot.”

People of other cultures are not immune to memory loss, but family members don’t feel comfortable housing their loved ones in a residential environment that doesn’t feel familiar.

Emad drew from personal experience. One of his family members is experiencing dementia, and Emad noticed that this loved one was more comfortable while visiting India, where he grew up.

“A lot of memory loss patients revert back to a childlike sense and what they grew up with is more familiar,” said Emad.

To inform his design, Emad relied on research journals and case studies. He also reviewed photos he had taken on trips to India and identified the commonalities between the architecture of different villages. He even conducted feedback interviews with stakeholders representing his target audience.

He designed a dense, compact village that pulled in defining points of Indian architecture by using distinctive window design, apertures, screening systems, roof tiles and more.

His design was well received by his professors. They encouraged him to push the Indian details and architectural language even further if he ever has the chance to bring this unique idea to fruition.

Emad would welcome the opportunity. Substantial growth in demand for memory care facilities is projected in the U.S. in the next 10 years. Moreover, culturally grounded design could help overcome the cultural stigma felt by many third world immigrants about putting their parents in care facilities.

“We need to offer a better sense of the life they want and that they remember,” said Emad.

Emad spent two quarters of his last school year developing his thesis project, but we think the idea will have relevance for years to come. For any senior living developers out there, we have a great architectural firm in mind for a culturally centric memory care project (hint, hint), and you know who will be on that team!

Designing for Substance Use Residential Treatment Services (SURTS)

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A Property and its Residents Get a New Lease on Life

The County of San Diego is committed to providing high-quality mental health and substance abuse recovery services. We’re fortunate to support this effort with architectural services for several buildings and campuses within the County’s Health and Human Services Agency program.

The Renovation

As part of the Agency’s Substance Use Residential Treatment Services (SURTS), we’re designing for the renovation and repurposing of a two-building property in National City.

The larger building is 270,000 square feet and shaped like an “H.” The previous owner was already using it as a dormitory, so the layout is well suited to a live-in detox and recovery center.

The 24 rooms are joined to shared restrooms and, thanks to the unique shape of the building, each room has an outdoor patio. Residents also have use of shared courtyards and common spaces.

The floorplate doesn’t require much changing, but with no as-built drawings available, one of our firm’s first tasks was to document the building. We did this with help from Zzyzx Imaging and its 3-D scanning and AutoDesk Revit technology.

The Work

Our scope of work includes the 200-page assessment we already finished for both buildings, as well as completely refurbishing the buildings, in and out, making ADA upgrades and incorporating a biophilic and energy-efficient design.

“For the large building, we envision screening it and making the mechanical system work with the building skin for maximum energy efficiency,” said Platt/Whitelaw Senior Associate Peter Soutowood. “We also hope to double-skin the building with vegetation and create a green roof.”

Our team plans to leverage the healing power of nature at the smaller, 6,000-square-foot building, too. Additionally, residents and staff will be able to use an adjacent garden that will be a great complement to the kitchen located inside.

The smaller building currently includes laundry facilities, but both the existing kitchen and laundry will be redesigned to make room for offices and other essential functions.

The Challenge

One of the biggest challenges to renovating the small building is creating an all-electric kitchen, which requires upsizing the electricity supply coming into the building. To help create a net-zero energy environment, our team will incorporate smart sensors into both buildings to inform their energy management systems.

While most our projects progress from design to construction to occupation, this one may be unique. With several mental health properties slated for renovation, the County may need to phase construction so that residents can be temporarily relocated or consolidated from one property to another.

We’re used to working closely with general contractors in these types of circumstances, especially because of our work with school districts. It’s often necessary to construct part of a project while the students and staff are using another part of the property.

The Best of the Best

In addition to a great project manager at the County’s Department of General Services, we’re lucky to work with terrific subconsultants on National City SURTS project. They include: KTU+A (landscape architecture), Turpin & Rattan Engineering (MPE), aark engineering (structural), Nasland (civil), WJE (fire suppression) and Orness Design Group (commercial kitchen consultant).

At the time of writing, the County has not yet selected a general contractor, but we anticipate project completion in late 2025. The County also plans to select an operator for the facility.

Thank you.

We’re humbled to work on projects that can help transform lives for the better and support our community in such important ways. We thank the County for this opportunity.

 

Community Architecture: Securing Water for Agriculture in Escondido

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Membrane Filtration Reverse Osmosis Facility and Intermediate Booster Pump Station will provide water for generations to come.

Avocados may be San Diegans’ most beloved agricultural product. So, how lucky are we to be on a team ensuring that avocado orchards in Escondido get the water they need!?

By building the Membrane Filtration Reverse Osmosis (MFRO) Facility for Agriculture and Intermediate Booster Pump Station (IBPS), the City of Escondido will provide a high-quality irrigation supply to its agricultural community (avocados and more!). These two facilities will also ease the burden on its wastewater infrastructure.

We’re serving as a subconsultant to the joint venture of engineering firms J.R. Filanc Construction Company and Brown & Caldwell for this $60 million project. The architectural services we’re providing include:

  • The modern, metal clad MFRO facility, which contains a control room and lockers, showers and bathrooms. Photovoltaic panels cover the roof. Also in our scope of work is a semi-sheltered outdoor area.
  • The nearby IBPS building houses four pumps that push the recycled water up to a reservoir, where it is stored before being delivered to farmers.

Creative Solutions

One of the challenges presented with the IBPS building was the tight lot size. We had to find a creative solution to fit the building onto the site in a way that would still offer access for maintenance vehicles and machinery.

We also welcomed the challenge of blending the pump station into the rustic character of other buildings in and around the adjoining park. At the city’s request, we designed it to look like a barn. The exterior metal cladding system we used picks up on many of the elements in nearby buildings.

Most of the pump station is secure and access is restricted (as is the case for the MFRO facility, too). However, we included two public restrooms on one side of the pump station for parkgoers to use.

The Design of MFRO

For the MFRO facility, affordability and expediency were extremely important to the city. We identified an attractive, pre-engineered manufactured building system that would suit the myriad requirements of this facility. It also provides a pleasant aesthetic experience for people passing by.

Finding opportunities in challenges is always fun, but our favorite part of this project was working closely as a design-build team. Especially with the MFRO facility, there’s a whole host of different systems that have to interact. Each company’s scope of work on this project was a piece of a bigger pie. We all got to see all the pieces coming together as we worked in our combined team.

Water for Agriculture

Ultimately, this project will produce up to two million gallons of water per day for agriculture in Escondido. It does so by improving the water quality of the city’s existing Title 22 recycled water supply from the Hale Avenue Resource Recovery Facility.

As City of Escondido Deputy Director of Utilities Angela Morrow said, “The MFRO Facility will provide a reliable, affordable and high-quality water supply to our agricultural community for generations to come, while beneficially reusing wastewater and reducing our reliance on imported water.”

Thank you

We are grateful to the Filanc Brown & Caldwell Joint Venture, as well as to the City of Escondido, for the chance to work on this important project.

More Than a Pool

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Platt/Whitelaw Architects proud of its role helping reopen the Jackie Robinson YMCA pool. 

Context is everything. Saying we designed a mechanical building for a pool doesn’t sounds particularly exciting. But a mechanical building for a beloved recreation destination for generations of families in an underserved neighborhood sounds pretty cool.

A community pool

Such was our work with Aquatic Design Group to renovate and reopen a six-lane, 25-yard pool and its surrounding area at the Jackie Robinson YMCA. Located in Southeastern San Diego, this pool is the only place where many area residents, including the kids, can swim.

Platt/Whitelaw team member Julijana Petrovic said that one speaker at the grand opening in 2022 talked about how she, her kids and her grandkids all learned how to swim at this pool.

As reported by the Union Tribune, “Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe told the crowd almost 80% of low-income children have never taken a swimming lesson.”

Fortunately, swim and water safety lessons are services the Jackie Robinson YMCA now offers…at its reopened pool.

Getting the job done

The pool was originally built in 1967 and was shut down in 2015 for safety reasons. Once we had the green light, our team worked hard to get the aquatic facility back open as soon as possible. From groundbreaking to grand opening, construction lasted only about eight months.

Our contribution to the project involved designing a mechanical building that would support the operations of the pool and splash pad. Sandra Gramley, AIA, NCARB, and Julijana from our team worked closely with Aquatic Design Group to do so.

They also collaborated with Aark Engineering’s structural engineers as well as mechanical, plumbing and electrical engineers from Turpin & Rattan.

A gathering space

For its surrounding community, the new facility at Jackie Robinson YMCA is more than just a pool.

Jackie Robinson Family YMCA Executive Director Anna Arancibia told the Union Tribune, “It’s a symbol of access, community and belonging for all. With this new incredible amenity, we hope to create a positive community gathering space that provides everyone access to opportunities that lead to happy and healthy lives.”

Anna’s words stated exactly why our firm remains so committed to community-based architecture. We are proud to help make a positive impact for the people of Southeast San Diego…and throughout our region.

Into Africa

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“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

What are the chances that two of our team would visit southern Africa within weeks of each other? Turns out that in fall of 2022, those chances were pretty good.

Sandra Gramley and Dave Madigan both (though separately and with their spouses) made the long trek to visit South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana. While both visited the same safari park (Kreuger National Park), toured wine country and saw Victoria Falls, their trips, and stories, were unique.

Sandra’s adventure

Sandra, an avid rugby fan and former player, attended a portion of the Sevens Rugby World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa. She also took a winery tour on the Rovos Rail wine train and learned about regional cuisine from an award-winning Zimbabwean cookbook author, Sarah Lilford.

While homebased at a resort on the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe, she traveled to the Chobe national refuge in Botswana. There, she spent the morning in a jeep and the afternoon in a boat spotting local wildlife.

While staying near another animal refuge, Kreuger National Park, Sandra took a second safari tour and went sightseeing along the Blyde River Canyon.

Dave’s adventure

Like Sandra, Dave visited the Kreuger National Park area, but he toured a private safari reserve called Lion Sands that abuts Kreuger. With no barriers fencing off either park, the animals traverse both areas. The difference, says Dave, is that if you don’t see animals from the jeep on the private reserve tour, they let you get out to search on foot!

 

After spending four days at the Lion Sands Resort (and not being eaten by a lion), Dave traveled to Cape Town. His time there included a tour of the prison on Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held. He also toured nearby Stellenbosch, famous for its wineries.

Dave was able to spend a few days in Johannesburg, too. There, he visited Soweto, the Apartheid Museum and Mandela’s first and last homes.

When Dave traveled to Zimbabwe for Victoria Falls, his tour included a helicopter ride into the area and a hike around the falls.

Impressions

Beyond these remarkable and somewhat shared experiences, we wanted to know what surprised Sandra and Dave during their visits.

Both said they found South Africa more similar to the U.S. than they were expecting but they did note a greater wealth divide between the people. The differences were more pronounced in Zimbabwe, which has high unemployment and poverty rates. The diamond trade has supported the Botswana economy, so the towns and buildings are more modern and people more affluent than in Zimbabwe.

Of course, we had to ask about what design inspiration these two architects found on their trips. For Sandra, it was Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town and an on-site restaurant featuring a beautiful, exposed wood design.

Dave was struck by the amount of Dutch Colonial and international modern architecture he saw in South Africa. He expected a more articulated design voice to have emerged that would reclaim the narrative of the country through architecture. Sometimes, however, it is potential that can spark design imagination.

Sandra and Dave found sparks, too, in the friends they made along their African travels and from the travel experience itself. Travel to faraway places is at once disconcerting and wonderous. It heightens all the senses and opens new doors.

May all your travels fascinate you.