About the Firm

Established in 1965, Glavé & Holmes Architecture is a nationally recognized architecture, interior design and planning firm located in Richmond, Virginia. Our regionally focused design practice has cultivated expertise in six specialty areas. Each area is supported by a studio structure - Cultural, Higher Education, Hospitality, Interior Design, Residential, and Urban Architecture - allowing us to provide the expertise necessary for a diverse portfolio that involves new buildings, additions to buildings, and renovations or adaptive reuse.

We strive to create a context-specific design that fits seamlessly into the cultural and historical milieu of a given community, while addressing the functional needs of the people who will interact with our buildings and spaces. We value a collaborative process that involves the client and the various design disciplines in a dynamic exchange of ideas and concepts. We believe that great design is contextual, timeless and has the capacity to engage the intellect and elevate the human spirit.

Island Architects

Island Architects was founded by G.M. (Skip) Wallace, Jr. in 1986 on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. The firm has designed more than 300 single- and multi-family coastal homes throughout the Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Gulf Coast, Kiawah Island, South Carolina, and the Eastern Seaboard. Island Architects' award-winning creations are characterized by their use of natural light, which the firm considers the most important indigenous feature of any space. The work further captures the appeal of coastal resort life through a blend of textures, native building materials and organic colors. Skip and Randy Holmes, Senior Principal and President of Glavé & Holmes Architecture, have worked together for several years, serving on Architectural Review Boards and collaborating on projects both in the Richmond, Virginia area and on Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Both firms share a similar design approach and sensitivity to context. In 2009, the two firms joined forces to establish a high-end residential practice, and Island Architects became a division of Glavé & Holmes Architecture.

Our Process

We are passionate about the creation of beautiful places and to that end, we have developed a design methodology that begins with a POETIC Process. Drawing from the root word poeïsis, meaning “create” or “make”, P-O-E-T-I-C is an acronym that reminds us of certain critical steps we undertake in the early stages of the project. The “POE” represents the contextual research of answering three fundamental questions: What defines this Place? Who Occupies this place? And how is this place Experienced by its occupants? Through collaboration with the entire project team, this research is distilled into a Transcendent Idea that represents the irreducible essence of the project, transcending the contributions of each individual. Finally, we express the Transcendent Idea with visual form and develop the Concepts that serve as the palette for the developed design.

In our projects, we have found that the POETIC Process tends to clarify goals, build consensus among stakeholders and yield coherent, beautiful designs.©