Wikipedia
archimania is a collective of architects and designers in downtown Memphis, Tennessee’s South Main Historic Arts District. The group was founded in 1995 and is led by Todd Walker, FAIA, and Barry Alan Yoakum, FAIA.
The design firm has been instrumental in advancing progressive architecture in Memphis. Its work is informed by the desire to integrate responsible sustainable design approaches with a mixture of modernism and regional vernacularism. Although some designs have been criticized by preservationists as being "too out there" and "not Southern enough," archimania adheres to a basic design principle that seeks to knit their unique spaces and architecture into the surrounding environment. Their work creates a rich dialogue about what architecture is and what it can be. Their projects include the Conservation Hall and a renovation of the Tennessee Governor's Mansion. They also completed the GE5 townhouses in Memphis where the design "flirts between modern and historic architecture" with "a clean design that captures the interchange between old and new."
The firm has garnered more than 150 design awards and was ranked by ARCHITECT magazine in 2015 as the #43 design firm in the U.S. In 2006, the firm won the architectural design competition for Conservation Hall at the Tennessee Governor's Mansion. The addition is mostly underground, with as its centerpiece "a meeting room capable of seating 160 guests, more for receptions, backed by a glass-walled oval atrium and courtyard that opens to the sky and channels light through the space surrounding it." One of the goals of the renovation/addition, spearheaded by First Lady Andrea Conte, was to encourage energy-efficient operation and minimize its environmental impact. To that end, it was designed as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design(LEED) Gold Certified building per USGBC criteria. Many of its materials used were reclaimed: the wood for a staircase came from 200-year-old logs fallen to the bottom of the Tennessee River, and materials for floors were retrieved from old, local buildings, including barns.