History

Formed in 2002, Sanders Pace Architecture combines the design talents of John Sanders and Brandon Pace to provide full-service architecture, planning, and design services to clients seeking a thoughtful, progressive solution to meet their goals and needs. Initially focused on unique adaptive reuse and renovation projects in the central core of Knoxville, their practice has grown to include small-scale custom residential work, innovative institutional buildings, and large-scale public sector projects that integrate research into a collaborative design process which leads to unique and inventive solutions.  With over 100 planning, preservation, and design awards received among other accolades, Sanders Pace has established itself as one of the most thoughtful and imaginative firms practicing in the Southeast.

Philosophy and Design Approach

We practice in East Tennessee. It’s a region with a variety of contexts from dense urban centers with suburban fringes to sparsely populated pastoral countryside bordering the rugged terrain of the Smoky Mountains. This level of diversity extends to the built environment with these geographies supporting projects varied in type, scale, and complexity.

We seek opportunity in unexpected places and unexplored pasts. We inherit an urban fabric rich in history and embodied energy. As with most mid-sized cities, a dramatic loss of industry during the latter 20th century left a surplus of vacant or underutilized buildings throughout the urban core and environs. The 21st century has brought sustained growth to places like this, with success bringing the often competing ideals of preservation and progress. We operate within this gap – developing strategies that leverage modest interventions against the clearly defined constraints of this historic context. We propose new hybrids that are positioned between instinctive nostalgic historicism and the desire for a new future absent any reference to the people and places of the past. Our work lands at this intersection of past and present, of tradition and innovation. We seek to balance a specificity of place with what is common and understood – engaging but advancing those materials, methods, and systems familiar to our region in new and innovative ways.

We are active and engaged. Our region has a long and storied history of independence and individuality along with a resistance to authority and change that continues unabated. We welcome this spirit but challenge this notion through a conspicuously collaborative design process that is deliberate and intentional. It is open and transparent, resulting in design responses that are broadly informed rather than narrowly defined; places that are specific and appropriate ere they are made.to when and where they are made.