Looking Back: Our Favorite Projects

For this next installment of our “Looking Back” series, we wanted to highlight the projects our architects have enjoyed working on the most. A few of us touched on what their favorite project has been and why, which gives insight into the people that are the backbone of this team. Keep reading to see which LGA projects they love most!

• • •

Doug Caywood
Lake Forest Middle School holds a special place in my heart as my dream of being an architect began in the drafting class on that campus thirty years prior to being on the design team that totally transformed the campus. From a menagerie of many buildings connected only by canopies, the staff and students now occupy a beautiful, safe, secure, and functional two-story facility that will serve Bradley County for generations to come. It is a pleasure to provide local architectural design services in my hometown and to renovate, revitalize, renew, or build new.

• • •

Stacy Colbaugh
My favorite Project… is always the project I am working on at this very moment. They all have unique qualities that make each one of them exciting and special to me.

• • •

Ewa Myszkowska
I really enjoyed working on the Jefferson Park Nursing Homes in Dandridge, Tennessee. It was the first so-called “Green Houses” – a new concept at the time, replacing institutional senior living with a setup that resembles homes. It has shown promising results in improving the health and well-being of residents. So promising, in fact, that all their new senior living facilities from that point onward followed the same concept of decentralized home communities. For me, that is why I choose to be an architect – to have a positive impact on people’s lives by creating spaces that foster wellbeing.

• • •

Ken Phillips
My favorite project is the Audiology and Speech Pathology at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Although never built, we did complete the Construction Documents. It included a state-of-the-art Audiology facility providing research, treatment, and teaching elements. It also provided a new College of Dentistry, Maxillofacial Surgery suite, and administrative and teaching facilities for the College of Medicine. It was all tied together through a 4-story glass atrium. It was interesting for the intense technologies involved due to the challenges of fitting it on a very tight site.

• • •

Michelle Sheppard
The Addition to Alcoa Intermediate School has to be my favorite project in the almost four years I have worked at LGA. I have worked on several school projects here at Lewis Group, but I have a special connection to this one because this is my alma mater. It is very rewarding to go back to the community where I grew up and have a hand in the design for the growth of the Alcoa City School system. I began working on this project as a Production Architect and now have the opportunity to see this project through completion as the Project Manager. I especially like how, once complete, this building will complement the southeast corner of the compact school campus that, up until now, has not had a prominent, welcoming focal point.

• • •

Jake Thomas
My favorite project so far is the Habitat for Humanity project in Cleveland, Tennessee. It was a fun problem to solve for a worthy cause.