The Main Street studio space for Sweet Sparkman Architects this week will become a lecture space for the Center For Architecture Sarasota. The firm will host the center's second Atelier Talk at its headquarters, where the collaborative creative process of the firm will be on full display. The talk will be followed up this weekend with a tour of The Casey Key House and a special talk by architects Todd Sweet and Jerry Sparkman. 

"It will be about our process as a studio," said Michele Demperio, who handles business development and marketing for the firm. "We have an open floor floor plan and open exchange of ideas that we center ourselves around." Even firm principals work in the open space rather than in tucked away offices. "Todd and Jerry don't have separate offices in an ivory tower somewhere," Demperio said.

Regularly, project managers do pinups where the entire office comments on the projects being handled at any given moment, offering constructive critiques. The firm right now is working on a number of public and private projects, including Fruitville Elementary School, a number of fire stations and a new treehouse residence, while at the same time the company is finishing up a renovation and expansion of the Siesta Key pavilion.

The Saturday tour will go both into the famous guest house at The Casey Key House, which gracesd SRQ Magazine's cover in March 2012 for the annual Home of The Year issue, and into the main residence itself, which has earned its own accolades.

The Wednesday event starts at the 2168 Main Street office at 5:30pm, with a $10 cost for CFAS members and a $15 charge otherwise. The tour of the residence, open to members only, will be Saturday from 4-6pm.