Shepley Bulfinch > People > Ralph T. Jackson
From my childhood as a "latchkey kid" my imaginative life was always central to my day. That time was often spent drawing and modeling fantasy worlds built of fragments of the things around me. Growing up in the '50s and '60s, I often saw the devastation of urban renewal as it ripped through the souls of communities, often never to be revived. I often say I backed into my profession. There were no role models, therefore no sense of entitlement, no reason to feel I could repair the world around me. With the help of a series of mentors, a sense of optimism emerged from within. The roots of my imaginative life in the fertile context of the visual arts weren't simply a refuge but an opportunity to reach out in a meaningful way to help repair and enrich the world around me.
My aspirations are derived from the arts, but more specifically from the power of architecture to create places of habitation and transform people's lives. All of my work is concerned with managing physical change contextually, discovering its architectural essence and making it the celebration of a community's mission.
Projects
Robert W. Woodruff LibraryAtlanta University Center
Eckstein Hall
Marquette University
Children's Hospital West Tower
Children's Hospital and Health System
Africana Studies and Research Center
Cornell University
New Law School Building
Georgia State University