Wil Marquez took his first step on the career path of design by constructing snow forts in his Portage backyard. But these days, you might say the 30-year-old designer creates tall buildings in a single bound.

Marquez, a second-generation Puerto Rican, is the director of A2SX, the digital design branch of Indy architecture firm A2SO4. His range of work includes retail centers, businesses, private interiors, and more recently, chairs and handbags. Before that, as a staff architect with A2SO4, Marquez worked on skyscrapers in Abu Dhabi and loft buildings in Indianapolis, and traveled to locales as.diverse as Nigeria, Morocco, Argentina and Minneapolis.

Minneapolis is also where his scholarship began. A 1996 Valparaiso High School graduate, Marquez completed his bachelor's degree at the University of Minnesota, and, after a stint with Ratio Architects Downtown, went on to get a master's at the University of Michigan.

These days, Marquez is also an adjunct professor in Ball State University's College of Architecture, which has led to constant creative renewal for him and chances for his students to gain work experience through professional collaboration.

A recent example of that is the "Shufa" chair. This stylish piece of furniture is eco-conscious (it can be made from virtually any local wood), customizable and quickly assembled. Marquez worked on the chair with a student who is now a colleague.

The flow and sharing of ideas is a central tenet in Marquez's design philosophy. Only a month ago he bought a new home -- a little midcentury ranch originally bought by the Lilly family for $16,000 -- and already he has begun redesigning the space and the things it contains.

"Why keep having ideas in your mind?" he asked. "Let them out."

The place is minimal now, with aqua and turquoise fixtures everywhere, but there are touches in every corner that friends, clients, partners and students have contributed.

He's working on a table in his garage with a friend. A student suggested he use discarded wood for picture frames. His mentor, Ana de Brea, knitted a rug of swirling green, pink purple and blue for the house. It dominates the living room.

"Collaboration is key in this new world," he.said. "That's the way I work, man."