Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert Swedroe.
So, before we jump into specific questions about what you do, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
In high school, I wanted to become a professional baseball player. To that end, I played my four high school years for a team that played in the New York City CYO and Hudson Valley League and sustained a D average on my school work. I focused on high school courses that did not require any homework, one of which was Drafting Arts, and that course resulted in me winning the St.-Gaudens Award of Art from the New York City Regents exam. This became my golden ticket to the Carnegie Institute of Technology, then considered one of the finest architecture schools in the country. From there, I won a scholarship to Yale University where I received my Master of Architecture degree.
Has it been a smooth road?
I’m pleased to say my road has indeed been a smooth one. Beginning with my marriage to my wife Rita and our subsequent life in Miami Beach at a time when South Florida was in the midst of a high degree of development and economic growth. Of course, securing a design position with noted architect Morris Lapidus helped a lot too! I soon became Senior Designer of the Lapidus firm providing me with many amazing opportunities to design projects in Florida, New York, and the Caribbean. This incredible early experience and good fortune enabled me, in 1974, to open my own architectural firm.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Robert M. Swedroe Architects-Planners story. Tell us more about it.
Being in the right place at the right time, afforded me many opportunities to design a great variety of building types including office buildings, a fire station, hospitals as well as all types of residential, which was to become my primary focus. My firm is best known for its successful luxury residential condominium projects. We are the proponents of the revolutionary breakthrough in high-end multi-family living, the direct entry elevator concept, which virtually eliminates corridors in buildings and allows direct access from the lobby to the residence itself. This affords more highly efficient buildings with diverse floor plans and privacy for all units. What sets us apart from other firms is that we design from the inside out, designing each product as if we will be living in it ourselves. We generally avoid structural exhibitionism and strive to design beautiful modern buildings with the best floor plans with the most efficient use of buildable area. In this regard, we have designed almost 150 direct entry elevator hi-rise and mid-rise buildings from South Florida to New York, Nevada, Mexico, and Brazil.
Do you feel like there are certain traits that increase the likelihood of success?
Analyzing each challenge from beginning to end with focus and determination to make each project a success for our clients is one of the secrets to our success. We perceive, we implement, and we succeed. There is a Japanese proverb that I am fond of that goes “vision without implementation is a hallucination”. Understanding that follow-through and re-evaluation at every step of the design process is critical to a project’s success is elemental in our work. This philosophy, along with our innovative thinking, has allowed my firm to design more than 120 buildings in the Aventura area alone. In recognition of this, I was recently honored with the Key to the City of Aventura at an event which included a documentary video retrospective of all the buildings that we have designed in the City.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.swedroe.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swedroearchitecture/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swedroearchitecture
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/swedroearch
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