PAUL HUNNICUTT
Architect, artist, and founder of AsOne.
“My work is shaped by moving through the world, searching for ideas in the quiet phenomena of nature.”
History
Paul’s work grows from a lifelong relationship with the natural world — shaped by years spent climbing, cycling, hiking, surfing, and studying landscapes from mountains and forests to deserts and oceans.
He grew up in the Washington, D.C. area, where early encounters with nature and the city defined who he was. from exploring the rich deciduous forests of Virginia to the skateboarding the museums, monuments, and geometry of the city sparked an interest in how places are shaped, understood, and designed.
He has traveled to more than thirty-six countries, observing cities, towns, and natural environments through the lens of architecture and art. These experiences formed an evolving catalogue of spatial memory — from dense urban centers to remote wilderness — each offering a different way of understanding scale, material, culture, and the relationship between people and their surroundings.
After finishing his education and working for several years, Paul and his wife spent a year traveling across six continents and twenty-six countries, exploring ancient and modern cities, remote mountain ranges, rainforests, deserts, and culturally diverse environments. This journey deepened his understanding of how people adapt to place, how landscapes shape human experience, and how ideas can be carried across different terrains and cultures.
After traveling Paul settled in Boulder, Colorado — a landscape defined by mountains, light, and dramatic shifts in terrain. The move marked a pivotal moment in his work, placing him in daily dialogue with the natural phenomena that now guide the philosophy of AsOne. The surrounding environment continues to inform his architectural thinking, artistic investigations, and ongoing search for ideas rooted in nature.
Education
Paul holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture with a minor in Architectural History from the University of Virginia (1998) and a Master of Architecture from Arizona State University (2000). His academic work was shaped by an intense study of architectural design, history, materiality, and the technical requirements of building.
Place played a defining role in his education. At Virginia, the legacy of Thomas Jefferson’s design for the Lawn, Pavilions, Rotunda, and Monticello instilled an early understanding of geometry, proportion, and the inventive shaping of space and experience. In Phoenix, the quiet expanses of the Sonoran Desert revealed a different architectural sensibility—rooted in light, shadow, climate, and the conversation between architecture and landscape.
Paul’s thinking was shaped by several influential architects and artists during his studies. He studied with Glenn Murcutt, whose emphasis on climate, site, detail, and environmental responsiveness became foundational to his approach. His thesis was guided by Wendell Burnette, whose work explores a dialogue between architecture, material, space, and place—and whose thinking encouraged Paul’s early investigations into nature as a generative force.
He also spent a semester studying with architect Markku Komonen at the Helsinki Institute of Technology in Finland. Traveling across the country to study Finnish modernism firsthand—especially the work of Alvar Aalto and Juha Leiviska —left a lasting impression. The expressive use of wood, the relationship between building and craftsmanship, and a clever use of light remains influential in AsOne’s work today.
Additional travels to Estonia and St. Petersburg while studying abroad expanded his exposure to unique architectural traditions and cultures.
While in university, Paul was also influenced by a diverse range of other architects whose ideas continue to shape AsOne. These include SelgasCano, Peter Zumthor, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Andrea Palladio, Francesco Borromini, Herzog & de Meuron, and several Japanese architects—such as Sou Fujimoto, Toyo Ito, Shigeru Ban, and Junya Ishigami.
The list is broad, spanning different eras and approaches, yet all share a spirit of experimentation, a deep interest in the dialogue between nature and architecture and an interest in the atmosphere their architecture creates.
A collection of Paul’s university work can be viewed here - Paul Hunnicutt University Work
Professional Experience
Paul has over two decades of architectural experience. Before founding AsOne in 2011, he worked in Phoenix and Washington, DC for several firms, across a wide range of project types—residential, cultural, commercial, and institutional. He built a foundation in design, technical execution, and complex project coordination. A selection of this early professional work can be viewed here (linked PDF).
In 2020-21 he spent a year teaching upper level architecture studios in the Department of Environmental Design at the University of Colorado Boulder. One studio explored connections between nature and architecture, while the second investigated the use of film as a tool for architectural exploration. Course summaries can be viewed here
Paul Hunnicutt - Architectural Experience before founding AsOne
Since founding AsOne, Paul’s primary focus has been residential architecture—a setting where inquiry, experimentation, and experience converge. He views the house as an intimate site to test ideas drawn from the quiet phenomena of nature: patterns of movement, shifting light, material behavior, the unfolding of space, and the interplay between structure and landscape.
Residential work allows for precision and depth, offering opportunities to develop concepts at every scale—from the site to the form of the house, down to the architectural details and even the objects that inhabit the space.
Paul works on residential architecture in parallel with art, using nature as an instigator, a generative force for design. Through drawing, painting, modeling, sculpting, material exploration, and digital exploration architecture and art influence one another as they develop from concept to built reality.
Paul’s work is grounded in the belief that ideas flow freely between nature, architecture, and art — a conviction that guides the vision and evolution of AsOne. His creative practice operates on the understanding that concepts are not fixed to a single medium, but circulate across scales and disciplines expanding the field of architecture into new territory.
some cool text about me in nature
Art has always run parallel to Paul’s architectural life. Throughout his career he has explored drawing, sculpture, photography, and object-making as ways to investigate space, form, and material. These artistic explorations now sit at the center of AsOne, extending architectural ideas into other mediums and allowing concepts to evolve across different scales.
Paul’s influences range widely and include Brodsky & Utkin, Donald Judd, Olafur Eliasson, Studio Drift, Gustav Klimt, Charles and Ray Eames, M.C. Escher, and glass sculptors Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová—artists whose work explores geometry, perception, material, and the poetics of form.
Paul’s art practice is continually evolving and becoming more integrated into AsOne, with new bodies of work emerging from ongoing investigations into natural phenomena.
An archive of early artwork can be viewed here (linked webpage).
