Editorial
Front Page - Friday, November 27, 2009
Vance Travis, of TWH Architects, keeps building on his reputation
Samara Litvack
From his office on the fifth floor of University Tower, Vance Travis has a fantastic view of downtown Chattanooga. But then, that’s exactly what he envisioned when he designed it. A walk through the gallery in that office reveals photos of his work, beginning with one of the building in which he stands.
Travis’ company, TWH Architects, Inc., has overseen the design of some of the most recognizable buildings and remarkable renovations in town, from the $15 million expansion and renovation of the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga’s Student Center, with its atrium full of daylighting and 300-seat auditorium, to the Center for Sports Medicine near Parkridge Hospital.
Travis worked closely with Sen. Bob Corker before his government days, when he was a local developer traveling all over the South doing design for commercial retailers and transforming local structures. One such project, Chattanooga’s old Sears building, was converted into Market Court, a functional work of art nestled in the heart of downtown.
Travis and his team have worked on churches, such as Signal Mountain Presbyterian; medical centers, like the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Plaza Urology Group building, a stone structure that sits amid a sea of brick buildings off of Holdsclaw; and media buildings, like the broadcast facility for WTVC Channel 9 on Highway 153.
TWH has also done much by way of education, such as downtown Chattanooga’s Battle Academy, for which it received manyawards.
“It’s got the water tower underneath the playground of the parking lot,” Travis says. “Those are all storm water storage vaults down there that were incorporated into the project.”
On top of Battle Academy sits a roof garden, which adds extra insulation, increases the building’s aesthetics and acts as a learning lab for students.
“There’s a little patio there that they come out and teachers can show them what plants are being grown and how they grown,” Travis says.
Recently, TWH Architects also finished up work on Hunter Middle School. The project was so well-received by the school board that the company is now in planning stages on the new Red Bank Middle School.
But among all these remarkable projects, Travis says one stands out as a professional and personal highlight – the Ocoee White Water Center.
When it was decided that the Olympics would be held in Atlanta in 1996, the committee for the games realized an opportunity that had never been pursued before. In years past, canoeing and kayaking had been done on manmade courses. With Atlanta being so close in proximity to the Ocoee River, Olympians had the opportunity to compete on a natural course for the first time in the history of the games.
“It started out as just a hope,” says Travis, but once everything was approved – a process that took several years and the clearance of several organizations to complete – the project became a reality.
“It was really a dream come true for an architect,” Travis says of the building that is now used daily for visitors to the area. “It wasn’t a huge building, but it was a very important building.”
Today, Travis handles other important Chattanooga landmarks, such as his recent completion of the renovation of the city’s hundred-year-old City Hall.
“We’ve done a lot of renovations over the years that include restoration, repair and just upgrades to systems, roofs, windows and so forth,” he says. “We look at what state of the art materials and technology have done and we will incorporate those into the renovation of a project, while at the same time — particularly if it’s a historic building or an architecturally-noteworthy building — we want to maintain the integrity of the design.”
Such was the case, he says, with the old City High School, his alma mater, now the Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences.
His company has also recently taken over repair of the Passage, Chattanooga’s popular staircase waterfall that has been closed for several years pending completion. And, as always, TWH has a couple of custom residential products on its slate.
The company is currently working on a learning lab for UTC’s Fletcher Hall, which will be fashioned after the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, complete with a ticker and flat screens so students can trade and learn about the stock market. It’s being constructed in similar fashion to Chattanooga State’s new $20 million nursing school, which TWH built with another firm, to offer actual patient rooms, complete with x-ray and radiology suites, for students to gain practice.
With so many impressive projects under his belt, in the works and on the horizon, one may wonder how Travis got started in the architecture industry. The idea, he says, came to him at a young age, and he just kind of went with it.
As a junior high school student, he took a drawing class and really enjoyed the three-dimensional assignments. He liked taking cubes and building them into different shapes, then figuring out and drawing what that shape looked like from every possible angle. Seeking a career where he could continue to do so, he set his sights on architecture.
Travis attended college at the University of Tennessee, working summers at different design firms in everything from engineering to landscaping.
“Every summer I was fortunate enough to get a job,”
Travis says.
Then, after earning his five-year degree, he spent three years interning with Earl Swinson, of Nashville, and Jim Franklin, a now-retired Chattanooga architect.
“I stayed with that firm – it was called Franklin Group Architects – until I decided to start my own company,” Travis says. “So I jumped in the big black hole and took that chance.”
And it seems as though the risk paid off. Having bought out his two former partners, Travis is now the sole owner of a firm that’s responsible for some of the most recognizable buildings in Chattanooga.
And while the down econo
my has altered business for everyone, Travis seems highly optimistic about the future.
“I don’t think any architect or contractor would admit they’re overflowing with work right now,” he says. “It’s slower than it has been in many, many years but Chattanooga seems to be weathering the storm better than most cities for a lot of reasons.”
And with his impressive portfolio, licensing in 13 states and experience in so many types of architecture, Chattanooga can expect Travis and his TWH Architects to be around to weather anything else that comes their way for many years to come.
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