Profile

Personal Greeting Richard Scott

Richard C Scott AIA Architect

Contact Details

Richard C Scott AIA Architect
Georgetown, TX

Bio

My career may be viewed as that of a small firm generalist who developed three specialties:
-Earthen Wall or Adobe design and construction leading to passive solar adobes for Taos Pueblo and other northern Pueblos and a dozen custom homes in the Albuquerque area.
-Aquatics Consulting and Swimming Pool design which began in New Mexico at Los Alamos where I designed what may be the highest elevation 50 meter pool in the US at 7244 ft. and culminated in my design of the pools for the Atlanta Olympics at Georgia Tech as Vice President of Counsilman-Hunsaker & Associates.
-Since 2007 I have been working on an instrumentation and monitoring system that a friend invented in 1979 and update to be web-based in 2011. He installed the first beta system in a natatorium, finding enough problems with the existing dehumidification system in the first week to save the owner 50% of their annual utility costs. The Holmes AutoPilot system is a tool that architects and engineers can use to help their clients manage energy as a resource, knowing their building's performance at any time.

While studying architecture, I worked in construction of adobe houses in 1972-73 prior to operating my own design/build adobe residential firm from 1973 to 1974. In 1974 I completed the first house built on speculation and began work at Long and Waters Architects, becoming a partner in 1979.

After 15 years in the general practice of architecture, 10 years as a principal, I specialized in swimming pool design from 1989 to the present.:
-7 years as Vice President at Counsilman-Hunsaker & Associates, 85 pool design projects
-9 years as Vice President at Water Technology, Inc. , 125 pool projects
-6 years as CEO of Aquatic Excellence, 140 projects, including major competition and aquatic recreation center projects.

We are expert pool consultants in varied areas:
Competition Pool aquatic design for local, regional, national and international level competition. Our experience in this area is second to none with my experience designing the Atlanta Olympic Pools, as Vice President of Counsilman-Hunsaker & Associates.

We are expert aquatics consultants on small swim schools and USA Swimming Teams' facilities that are operated as businesses, offering studies for design and economic feasibility. Our work is focused on reducing operating costs through building envelopes and the elimination of waste through instrumentation and monitoring as well as the USA Swimming concepts of Total Aquatic Programming for increased revenues. By addressing revenues and expenses, facilities may work toward Net Zero operating costs.

We are expert pool consultants on outdoor municipal family aquatic centers. We provide initial planning services, budgeting, architectural program areas, Total Aquatic Programming of the pools, and the design of outdoor aquatic centers and indoor aquatic centers. THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR HIGH QUALITY DESIGN. On outdoor pools site analysis, location of trees, having a site large enough to push the fences back from the concrete deck, the aesthetics of the hardscape and the softscape, focal points and views from within and without the aquatic center are basics that set us apart from some of the best known high volume firms.

Our indoor leisure pool design projects at Dimond Park in Juneau, AK and Burleson, TX continue the tradition of innovative designs that we have done in previous work at Ballwin, MO, St. Peters, MO and Santa Fe, NM. We have additional specialization in the evaluation of indoor and outdoor pools for repair, renovation or replacement. Most aquatic centers and natatoria in the country need renovation that accomplishes 1) Lower operating costs, 2) Increased attendance and revenues. Municipalities that are burdened by annual maintenance costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and subsidies to operate their pools can vastly improve this situation through renovation to a modern aquatic center.

We offer energy consulting services on swimming pool, recreation center and ice arena projects. Our services include monitoring building performance and reducing waste with results of 10 to 40% in reduction of annual utility costs. We will teach this service to other architects and engineers who are interested in reducing their client's energy usage by building monitoring. EVERY ARCHITECT AND ENGINEER IN THE WORLD NEEDS THESE TOOLS TO ASSIST THEIR CLIENTS IN MONITORING BUILDINGS TO REDUCE WASTE. We have established SCOTT ENERGY, a sister company to Aquatic Excellence, to teach architects how to add this profitable consulting service to their practice.

Although saving energy in buildings is a mission, looking toward 2030, there are many benefits of monitoring buildings, even to the extent that it is a requirement under Draft ISO 50001, which has been signed by 32 countries. Link: http://www.iso.org/iso/iso-focus_2009-09_p18__mainfocus.pdf

We use a proprietary system invented by a friend in 1979 to instrument buildings. It has undergone continuous development since that time, although with cheap energy sources in the U.S, the usage has not reached its potential. We intend to teach other design professionals how to use the software globally, how to package it with a programmable logic controller and sensors. We will offer seminars to teach any architect or engineer how to assist their former and current clients in saving utility costs through building monitoring. Templates have been developed for any building type, although we are focusing on the recreation center and aquatic center projects because that is our specialty and because they tend to be energy hogs.

In 2005 we set out to build a new type of aquatics design and consulting company providing high quality services versus high volume, innovative design and organized around the best designers in the country. This was an ambitious plan:
To be the best aquatics consultants while also being among the lowest cost providers in the country. The road map was simple: find the stars in the country, give them the best tools of technology, provide a bottom up culture, share financial information according to the practices of an open book company and get out of their way. We adhere to the ethics statement of the AIA and the highest standard of business ethics. We base design decisions on the best interests of the client.

We survived the boom years of 2006-2008 by growing and working day and night. Could we fully meet our quality goals and limit our workload during the boom? Not really, especially with the Virginia Graeme Baker Act requiring our clients to move quickly to replace drains. We survived the shrinking market of 2009-2010 and the end of the recession (officially declared over in July 2010). Hopefully the greatest economic challenge of our lives, we saw a nice upturn with major new competition and municipal projects starting, not realizing the worst was still ahead. During 2008-2010, we saw enough projects coming to gross a mid to upper six figures in fees for the third year in a row. In 2011 we downsized to survive this period of lower workload. During 2010-13, we designed and observed the construction of the two largest projects of my career.

Our company has a strong interest in energy and sustainability and can make a good argument for regenerative filters, instrumentation and monitoring, long lasting, high efficiency pumps and variable frequency drives.

A lot of our competitors tend to do one gutter style, use one type of filter, always the same manufacturer of equipment. While this has a beneficial effect on their bottom line, we take the point of view that Owners who will live with the pool they build for a long time should determine these choices at the beginning of a project. There are a lot of good manufacturers. We try to educate our clients and let them pick the design of the gutter and manufacturer of the equipment. So we are equally comfortable specifiying a Paddock stainless steel gutter on a gunite wall, or a Myrtha stainless steel wall panel with PVC coating on a CIP concrete floor or a concrete and tile gutter on a shotcrete wall and floor. Although we have a strong preference for low water usage regenerative filters, we also design with pressure sand and vacuum sand filters for clients who prefer them for their low initial cost.

I emphasize design so much because the design of the pools is what is most important. The best designs are not just a pleasure to look at and experience as a bather. They are the difference between the Owners that we work for being able to make a profit or to just stay open. I have learned the design of pools by doing it. This is not something you can go to school for yet. I first learned the new generation free form pool design from the European designers who first developed this specialty and Canadian designers who quickly adopted it. I learned competition pool design from Joe Hunsaker, who founded his firm in 1970. When I joined the firm in 1989, I was the first registered design professional at the company. Then I learned outdoor pool design from Claude Rogers when we were colleagues at WTI. Joel Roderick was also highly influential as we worked together on and off over the last 20 years. Joel is an immense talent who always was able to draw and design as fast or faster than I could think. More recently I have learned about concession area design for high level food service from Mike Holtzman of Profitable Foods. Mike helps our clients train their staff to feed 1,000 people in two hours and designs the spaces for efficient kitchens.

Education

University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
M.A., 1973
Education
1972 To 1974

University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
N/A, 1978
Architecture
1973 To 1978

The American University
Washington, District Of Columbia, United States
B.A., 1967
International Studies
1963 To 1967

Job History

Aquatic Excellence
Owner
Austin, TX, United States
July 2005 - present

Water Technology, Inc.
Vice President
Beaver Dam, WI, United States
November 1996 - July 2005

Counsilman-Hunsaker & Associates
Vice President
St. Louis, MO, United States
September 1989 - November 1996

Richard Scott AIA
Owner
Albuquerque
December 1988 - September 1989

BPLW Architects & Engineers
Vice President
Albuquerque, NM, United States
July 1986 - December 1988

Long & Waters Architects, Engineers & Planners
Vice President
Albuquerque, NM, United States
April 1986 - July 1986

R. C. Scott Construction
Owner
Albuquereque, NM, United States
April 1973 - April 1974

USAF
Captain
Albuquerque, NM
September 1967 - August 1971