Nathan Davis

After this mind-expanding experience, he made the journey to Eugene, OR—hungry for more. There, he earned his Master of Architecture from the University of Oregon. After meeting his wife there, they chose to settle outside of Boston, MA and Nathan found a new home at Phase Zero Design.

If that’s not enough travel for you, he also attended a study abroad program in Ghana.

Primarily supporting our Residential and Hospitality teams, Nathan is always excited to expand his horizons and experience projects from new markets.

How do you put a client’s goals before your own in a project?

One trick I learned in school was to disassociate myself with the designs I produced. I did this by mentally labeling my design as ‘the work’ and myself as ‘the designer.’ It can be kind of weird to explain, but this made it significantly easier for me to accept criticism and not take things personally. It was ‘the work’ being judged, not me. I feel that I became a much better designer after learning this because I was able to focus on the positive feedback and not worry as much about what someone thought of me as a designer.

Describe the moment you realized architecture was for you.

I went into college as ‘undecided’ because I was also contemplating a business or math degree at the time. However, after touring the architecture building and seeing the pinups and models the students produced, I knew it was for me. I love to think three-dimensionally and work with my hands on a variety of different tasks.

How do you define the success of a project?

Meeting the deadline and being within budget is great, but more importantly: I feel successful when I’ve learned something new for the next time. Growing and understanding why and how we do things the way we do things is a big part of success for me.