art, architecture + ecology

The name of our firm is a shade of blue, but our roots are truly green. Jonathan Hammond and Bruce Playle formed INDIGO | Hammond + Playle Architects, LLP in 1999, merging over 55 years of combined experience in the field. However, Indigo’s story begins long before this union in the early years of the life and training of its Principles.

After receiving a degree in landscape architecture from UC Berkeley, Hammond moved with his family ‘back to the land’ in California’s Central Valley. Studying Ecology at UC Davis, he gained a profound interest in the relationship between people and built, agricultural, and natural environments. At a farm property outside of town, Hammond founded Living Systems, a passive solar design and research firm which received private commissions as well as grants from the Carter administration.

Living systems conducted research and designed buildings that replaced mechanical systems with thermal mass and passive solar technologies. Hammond designed a series of passive solar buildings, and developed and tested the equipment to make them work. These included study and development of thermal heat sinks, thermo-siphoning roof pads, and movable insulation. Buildings that employ these systems have maintained thermal comfort for over 30 years with minimal maintenance.

The Living Systems team drafted Davis’ energy-conscious city building code, the first in the nation. These mandates would later be adapted for California’s Title 24 code, a statewide standard for energy efficiency in the built environment. At the same time, Hammond and the team collaborated with mayor Bob Black to plan a citywide network of bike lanes for carbon-neutral transportation in a compact city. Living Systems planned Davis’ Senda Nueva neighborhood, a smart grid neighborhood with streets and lots oriented for passive solar functionality. The development is connected by a pedestrian / bike greenbelt parkway with drainage swales for storm water runoff and a network of parks and open spaces.

Combined with other revolutionary Services taking place in Davis at the time, such as the famed Village Homes neighborhood and the Davis Farmer’s Market, the Living Systems community was helping pave the way for today’s environmental movement, promoting local foods, carbon reduction, and energy efficiency.

In 1984, Hammond merged his interests in tactile, sculptural materials with his commitment to local and renewable materials by designing and building a climate-adapted artists’ studio out of rice-straw bales. Known affectionately as ‘the straw-bale’, this structure was featured in ‘Fine Homebuilding’ and is credited as the first modern straw bale structure in California.

Beyond these California roots, Indigo’s Principles are deeply informed by their contact with Asian cultures and design techniques. As associate professor of Architecture and Environmental design at the University of Illinois, Hammond conducted research on Feng Shui and village design in Southern China, examining the connections between ancient building traditions and sustainable design in the West. As a professor at Kyushu Institute of Design in Fukuoka, Japan, Hammond carried these themes to a more personal, artistic level.

Playle’s experience working at Sacramento’s LBDG architecture firm grounds indigo’s institutional practice. Playle’s skills in management and administration allow the firm to practice architecture that works in the complex regulatory and political settings that surround every project. This combination of practicality and innovation makes Indigo both a logical and pioneering choice for buildings, landscapes and plans that are tailored to people and place.