Leo Marmol, keynote speaker at the Sarasota Design Conference. Photo by Jesse Green.

This November, architects and designers will flock to Sarasota for the Sarasota Design Conference. The conference, which has taken place every two years since 1988, is themed Duality: Harmony in Contrast and will take place in St. Paul Lutheran Church, a Victor Lundy-designed campus and a sterling example of the Sarasota School of Architecture. Organized by the Florida Gulf Coast Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the conference’s focus has always been firmly on design. Featuring lectures and a panel discussion with four prominent industry professionals, the conference intends to inspire and creatively invigorate the minds of those in attendance. Below is an excerpt from an interview with one of the conference’s keynote speakers, Leo Marmol, FAIA, co-founder of the Los Angeles-based, design-build practice Marmol Radziner, set to appear in the January 2027 issue of SRQ Magazine.

SRQ: The Sarasota School was a foundational movement in modernist architecture.. What can today’s architects take from the past as they design and build for the future?

Leo Marmol: One thing I’m looking forward to studying in Sarasota is how the architects of the Sarasota School dealt with an extreme climate. The climate in Sarasota is far more challenging than the relatively mild climate of Southern California. We have the benefit of year-round mild weather, so we haven’t faced the same kinds of challenges that Sarasota’s architects had to address. Those architects looked at things like cross-ventilation and how sunlight could be controlled within interior spaces. I look forward to seeing how those historic buildings incorporated what we would consider environmental responses today: ways in which buildings could naturally heat and cool without the benefit of forced-air heating and cooling.

How could we use nature itself to provide a more comfortable living experience? That might involve evaporation, water and how water can be used alongside air movement to cool spaces. I think there are some really important lessons that we, as Californians, can take from the early Sarasota projects and hopefully adapt to contemporary needs.

Sarasota Design Conference, November 12-14, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Sarasota

Leo Marmol, keynote speaker at the Sarasota Design Conference. Photo by Jesse Green.

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