
Architect
Solarchitecture
Stephen M. Heinz. AIA has held to his vision of the architect as a “Medieval Master Builder” since swinging a hammer at age 12. He earned a BA in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and his professional degree at Cornell University. Already influenced by Louie Kahn, Ian Mc Harg, and Malcolm Wells from Penn, and confronting Rowe, Ungers, and Selligman at Cornell, his senior thesis reflected precarious and environmentally challenging sites and the use of natural materials for clustering traditional post and beam housing. It was thoroughly reviled, but he pressed on and remained undeterred in a commitment to conservative and innovative Architecture.
While in Ithaca, he simultaneously ran a successful electrical contracting business, a design-build firm, an active BSA scout troop, coached youth soccer, and attended school while supporting a growing family. Moving back to his roots in the Philadelphia area, he practiced all sectors of architectural projects in prestigious local firms. After winning an international design competition in 1986, he started his own private practice.
He continues to practice mainly in the Princeton-Philadelphia corridor serving developers, corporations, and individuals. His body of work focuses on sustainable, natural, environmentally responsible, efficient, and beautiful spaces for living, working, worshiping, learning, and celebrating. He has served as a leader in the Bucks County Chapter AIA since 1990 in almost every capacity. He still mentors youth in Scouting, (over 100 Eagle scouts), leads the local township HARB, coaches youth soccer, and is still trekking, skiing, sailing, building and Is laying stone for historic preservation.
He continues his experiments in new building technologies, natural heating, cooling, seasonal lighting, geo-thermal storage and release, solar gain and conversion, interior and exterior wind movement and convection, material life cycles, and landscape design, and remains engaged and fascinated with the latest computer assisted design programs and animations.