This column's about Heather McKinney, a talented architect in Austin who, along with her firm McKinney York, has built many awesome civic, educational, commercial, institutional and residential buildings in Austin since 1983, as well as the recent McGarrah Jessee advertising firm’s office downtown that is so incredible I find any excuse to get in there.

My first draft of this column started by describing the McGarrah Jessee offices, which are housed in the historic Starr Building in downtown Austin. How a red, Mid-Century Modern-inspired, over-sized mobile will catch your eye from the street through the windows. How an even bolder, red, giant, shiny portal framing the escalators will make you feel like you’re in a (real hip) department store. How when you get inside you think, for a moment, you’ve been sent through time to an ad agency on Madison Avenue in New York in the 1960s. An alright column opener, but hardly a fitting start to describing someone doing such an amazing job of shaping Austin.

But then I came across a photo album on Facebook. It was from McGarrah Jessee, and it featured this fresh and hip company’s employees planking around the fancy, stunning, modern office space. And I realized that this, this was why Heather McKinney is important.

“When you ask architects what are their favorite things to do as an architect, they’ll usually say a church because it’s a spiritual space or a museum because it’s an inspiring space. But to create a space for creative people, I never realized how daunting that would be, but how really, really rewarding it is when you feel like people can be productive and stimulated by their environment,” says Heather.

Heather McKinney creates spaces for people. Where they can be stimulated. Where they can be themselves. Where they can be comfortable. Where they can be creative. Spaces that look good, professional, modern and nice, but where you can wear jeans in and lay across a couple of tables imitating an Internet meme, if you’re so inclined.

That’s not easy to do, but it’s something that should be noticed and applauded when it is.

Heather’s been doing architecture work in Austin for almost 30 years (before she was joined by other principals at the firm, it was called Heather H. McKinney Architects and started in 1983). From Texas, Heather’s known her love of architecture since about age 12, and credits the early discovery to a strong line of engineers and problem solvers on the male side of her family combined with a strong line of artistic and creative line of women.

Her firm works with both residential and institutional clients that she feels complement and inform each other well. Residential projects teach her to be more humane with institutional work, and institutional projects keep her organized with residential ones.

She doesn’t much care for creating work that will be a flash in the pan. Meaningful. Long lasting. Engaging. Those are her words. She believes in creating buildings that will be durable, satisfying for everyone in them, flexible over the long run — in short, ever evolving.

In fact, if you peruse their online portfolio, you’ll see a lot of “master plan” descriptions; McKinney York works with clients to look into the future of their architectural and design needs. Just look to The University of Texas— you can see The Texas Union Courtyard as an example of her firm’s comforting and captivating design, as well as plenty of other public and educational spaces on campus. The Oak Hill United Methodist Church Adult Education Building, with its stunning courtyard, is nice. I even dig the Oak Hill Fire Station with all its modern exterior austerity with an interior that’s built for efficiency and to showcase simple materials.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but ten, twenty, thirty years ago Austin looked very different.

“You know, a lot of the buildings downtown from the 1970s and 80s were fairly undistinguished. Our really good architecture was our historic bones: the capitol, the Driskoll, the buildings along Congress avenue, and less the things that were built in between. But now I would say there’s a lot more vitality in the city. A lot more energy downtown day and night. And that has to do with people living downtown now,” says Heather.

People. Interested, vibrant, community-oriented, happy people. People who care about their neighborhoods. People who work toward their dreams. People who interact with one another despite their differences in race, class, location or vocation. It’s these people that kept Heather in Austin (though she swore she’d never come back to live in Texas after going to college on the East Coast). It’s what keeps (and draws) a lot of people here.

“The fact that you can have a broad diversity [of people] in a city like this and that it’s so easy to meet people and make friends is nice. It’s not closed; I think it’s really what’s very unique about the city…there’s a sense of optimism. When you talk to people, they’re happy. They have an idea of what they want to do with themselves. They’re not treading water; they’re going somewhere. That’s very stimulating to the community as a whole. And I think that reads through in the architecture in the community spaces," says Heather.

I think Heather has managed to create meaningful civic and institutional work, a bad-ass looking downtown advertising firm office and a whole heckuva lot of beautiful residential work – in effect shape the look of Austin physically – because she cares so deeply about creating something everyone can love and use and be inspired by for years to come.

So what’s up for Heather and her impact on Austin architecture? She certainly plans on working here a long time. And perhaps McKinney York’s most exciting recent project that just broke ground on the East Side, where their offices are located, is the African American Cultural and Heritage Facility, located at 912 E. 11th Street. When built, it will serve as an anchor facility for the African American Cultural Heritage District along 11th Street.

“[Working on the African American Cultural and Heritage Facility] has been a really rich experience for us. We love working here on the East Side of the city. We like going to all the restaurants and finding all the great artists. It’s a wonderful community. To have an opportunity to do a project here and learn more about the people who are our neighbors has been a real treat,” says Heather.

So is getting to experience Heather's work! We're excited to have folks like Heather creating distinguished architecture for Austin. We can't wait to see what she comes up with next. How has Austin architecture changed from a couple of decades ago to now in your opinion?