Michael Palmer

Mike was the kid who loved buildings.  He talked about them, took pictures of them, and built them out of Legos.  But it was at a junior-high leadership camp at Saint John’s University that Mike’s eyes were opened to the impact that a building can have on a place.  He was struck by the way the unusual and experimental beauty of Marcel Breuer’s modern Abbey Church made Saint John’s campus feel so different from any other place he’d been.

Inspired by the impression the Abbey Church had on him in his youth, Mike judges his projects’ success by the impact they have on their surroundings. He believes that a well-designed building gets noticed, exceeds expectations and, most importantly, can transform the very atmosphere of a campus or neighborhood into something unique.