VMDO Architects
Charlottesville, VA + Washington, D.C.
“When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more the more one seeds them with the invisible crop of one comes to know them, the more one seeds them with the invisible memories and associations that will be waiting for crop of memories and associations that will be waiting for you when you come back, while new places offer up new thoughts, new possibilities.”
— Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking
We are architects in Charlottesville VA and Washington DC. Our region’s blue ridge mountains and red clay soils profoundly influence our work, acting as both setting and impetus. We work in places of rich traditions and diverse stories - deeply rooted in graciousness, revolutionary spirit, and an egalitarian ideal. The junction of the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers is a constant reminder of the responsibility of architecture to serve community and caretake the environment of which we are part. Architecture here forms itself about the landscape, not the other way around. We challenge ourselves to design strategies that build upon the beauty of these special places, in the hopes that they remain so. Our version of success expresses the joy of people who are passionate about architecture’s contribution to a heightened quality of life here, and who want to experience it more fully.
We believe that it is possible to bring together form, material, and use into architecture that offers not just a place to be, but a way to be. We work together with institutions of learning and community to design and build architecture of self-evident fit with its surroundings that contributes to making a lasting, supportive, and memorable place. We are moved by the idea that our efforts have value in the communities where we work. It is especially fortifying when our contributions to the culture of place mark a recognized turning point, and are acknowledged to be truly expressive of a client’s mission. Beauty is something that we must give back, given the resources that architecture commits.
