Last September, local architect Gary Hoyt was elevated to the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) 2024 College of Fellows. Established in 1857, the AIA is an esteemed professional organization for architects that also advocates for the value of architecture in society. The AIA College of Fellows was developed to recognize architects who have achieved a standard of excellence in the profession and who have made significant contributions to architecture and society on a national level. Only three percent of AIA members have achieved this distinction, and Hoyt was the only Florida-based architect to receive this honor last year. The average Sarasota resident may not know Gary Hoyt’s name, but odds are you know his work—over the course of his remarkable career, Hoyt has left an indelible imprint on the city.

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“I can’t say our whole family was into architecture, but when I look back at it I was always drawing,” Hoyt says. “When I was in school, back in the old days, you used to have to do shop and mechanical drawing. I’d done a lot of artwork before that in school, but once I started doing mechanical drawing the structured part of it really did attract me.”

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Hoyt went on to attend the University of Florida where he got his degree in architecture with a minor in environmental engineering. After leaving school, he spent four years working for Tim Siebert, one of the founders of the modern movement known as the Sarasota School of Architecture. During Hoyt’s time there, Siebert's office was working with renowned design firm SWA Group on the master plan for Longboat Key. Hoyt had the opportunity to participate in a project charrette (a type of intensive collaboration sometimes used in planning) at SWA’s downtown Boston office where he connected with Moshe Safdie. At the time, Safdie was the head of the Urban Design program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Hoyt went on to relocate to Boston and to join Moshe Safdie & Associates where he worked closely with Safdie—the two remain in touch to this day.

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During his time in Boston, Hoyt deepened his knowledge of urban design by working on projects including the National Gallery of Canada, the Cambridge Center in Massachusetts and Columbus Circle in New York. He eventually left Safdie’s office and started Design Options, one of the first third-party software products dedicated to using computer-aided drafting as a design tool. Hoyt reached a point where wanted to combine his experience with architecture, urban design and technology in one studio, and saw Sarasota as the ideal location to start a design firm. He founded Hoyt Architects in 1993 as an architecture and urban design firm committed to creating vibrant walkable cities. Urban design is the process of shaping the physical features of cities, towns and public spaces to create environments that are cohesive, functional and sustainable. It focuses on enhancing the overall quality of urban life through the arrangement and design of buildings, streets, parks and other public areas. While architecture deals with the design of individual buildings, urban design ensures that the structures integrate harmoniously into the larger urban landscape. Not every architect is an urban planner and not every urban planner is an architect, but at Hoyt Architects they have always looked at the bigger picture.

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“Historically, if you go back to the fifties and sixties, zoning was inherently exclusionary. Everything was isolated. We think everything should be integrated. When you can look at a building not just as a single sculpture, but as part of a more complex whole, that sort of gets our juices going. Even a really great hotel is like a small city,” Hoyt explains. “If you know our office, we blend a lot of pieces in the architecture field. We deal not just with buildings, but we deal with sites and master planning. We love the craft of architecture, we love getting things built. And so it’s always been about bringing everything together.”

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In recent years, downtown Sarasota has become known as a thriving, walkable metropolis and Hoyt has played a significant role in the area’s evolution. It’s not just that he has designed buildings that are culturally significant, though he has: Hoyt has literally helped redefine the landscape of the downtown area. One significant example of this is the Selby Public Library, an early and significant part of Sarasota’s revitalization, that Hoyt collaborated closely on with late architect Eugene Aubry. When the library opened in November 1998, it became a cultural and architectural landmark that set the tone for downtown’s transformation.

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“It sounds hard to believe now, but it was somewhat controversial that we were putting a library downtown. People said we didn’t need one there,” Hoyt says. “People also said no one would walk that far. At that time, between first and second, there was really nothing out there besides an old bank parking lot. It was a pretty sketchy area.”
It was also an area that was poorly-defined, an issue that Hoyt and Aubry solved through the design of the library itself. In architecture and urban planning, there is a concept called building to the edge, which is when a structure is designed so that it extends all the way to the boundary of the property line or the edge of the sidewalk. Not only does this maximize space, it delineates the streetscape more clearly by creating a defined street wall that gives the area a sense of enclosure and continuity. Building to the edge also enhances walkability by placing display windows and entrances to shops and cafes directly along the sidewalk, encouraging pedestrian activity. It’s a strategy Hoyt has used in other downtown projects like Aloft, One Palm, The Desota, The Jewel, The Mark and many more.
“Sarasota has very high walkability scores compared to other cities, and I think it’s been by basically curating a city building by building and always keeping an eye on the larger planning issues that you’re having to confront to solve problems,” Hoyt says. “Design issues like making sure you have clear glass at the ground floor so there’s a transparency to the street.”
Hoyt’s influence in Sarasota extends far beyond the boundaries of downtown. His lengthy portfolio includes impressive projects like the Ed Smith Stadium, the redesign of Bayfront Park, the master plan and buildings of Main Street at Lakewood Ranch and the master plan for the Patriot Plaza at the Sarasota National Cemetery. Hoyt has also done work on national and global platforms. He cofounded Imerza, a software that facilitates interactive, real-time modeling for design teams. This technology has been used to develop digital twin design models for the redevelopment of Washington DC's Walter Reed Medical Center, a new city in Saudi Arabia called Qiddiya and the new SM Smart City development in Manila Bay in the Philippines. It is the totality of his achievements that earned him deserved recognition as a member of the AIA College of Fellows. Here in Sarasota, we’ve been quietly benefiting from his unique vision for decades.
“I think the idea here in Sarasota was, let’s just create this really great city and let’s do it with buildings for live, work and play that engage and enliven the street,” Hoyt says. ”Whether we’re doing urban projects or environmental projects, we believe a project isn’t only the structure, but it’s also the context that the structure is in. And I think that’s really been the passion of our office overall was to create a studio that integrated architectural buildings into the intricate tapestry of uses that make up a city.”
Images courtesy of Hoyt Architects.