Day 4: Bozeman and Lori Ryker

August 19, 2011... One of our reasons for pushing so hard to get to Bozeman was to meet with the architect, Lori Ryker.  Because of family commitments, the only day she had to meet with us was the 19th, so we had to push to get in and we are so glad that we did. Lori is a unique combination of many wonderful qualities.  She has a wonderful design sense, an extensive knowledge of sustainable building (she's written two books on the subject) and she is embracing a new direction in architecture that is more organic in nature.  You can see her work at studioryker.com.  She is also a passionate teacher of young people and in addition to teaching, runs a special studio for them every summer.

What we found so interesting in Lori's work, was not as much her architecture as her jewelry and this statement that she wrote in her introduction to the Artemis institute, a nonprofit she has founded:




This combination of spirtuality, design, and sustainability are the three elements we have been looking for in a partner to help us build Butterfly Farm.  We asked Lori to think about how she would translate her jewelry design into architecture.  Her jewelry design is flowing, intuitive, organic, lovingly crafted, beautifully designed.  She thought the opportunity to explore this idea with us would be fantastic.  She said that it was a direction she was looking to travel in but that none of her clients before this had asked for such a possibility.  We will see what evolves together!!  But it certainly felt like Lori was someone who would walk with us all the way through the process.

Lori and Stella