Wil Marquez is a designer, architect and director of A2SX, the digital design branch of Indy architecture firm A2SO4. Visit the following page for a more thorough bio:

I understand you had a passion for construction even as a child?

I lived in a post-World War II neighborhood, a 1950s subdivision, but we entertained ourselves quite a bit with making things like snow forts. We used to live next to some woods, trails, so it was a fun place to be creative. My father is probably more responsible though. When my father was growing up in Gary, he used to baby-sit two girls who grew up to be architects, and so, to my father, who’s an electrician, there was no other profession for me.

Tell me about the path you chose and where it took you.

Minnesota was the best thing, the most appropriate (school). I was 18. I wanted to get out of the house. Me and my dad drove in this little car up to Minnesota, and at that point the only thing I knew was the Vikings. And I loved it. I loved the cold. Minneapolis was very cosmopolitan. It’s quite chic. So I stayed. Worked there for a little while, and Ratio Architects in Downtown Indianapolis gave me an opportunity to come down to Indy and work.

And then you wanted to go back to school?

I was happy here, but I was questioning — like, why are we drawing this angle? What’s the meaning? So I went to graduate school to find some of those answers. And I came back knowing more theory. I think it gave meaning to design, and I think my behavior as a designer had legs, had direction — it had guts. And of course, Michigan, Ann Arbor, what an experience. People get addicted to drugs — I got addicted to globalism. So when I got back from Michigan, A2SO4 had already started embarking on work in the Middle East, which was exciting, at least for a little while, until it gets overwhelming. You become consumed by the superfluous. You get consumed by buildings which, for no reason, are tall just to be tall. They’re not sustainable. Our whole team was out there. I was coming back and forth. They decided to stay, but I came back. I felt there was more to be done here, so I starting teaching.

As an adjunct professor at Ball State?

I felt that, if I wanted to make real change, I wasn’t going to change the people in my office. I really needed to build a small army of like-minded thinkers about design. So I went to Ball State, and I teamed up with some really great people, and my firm’s been behind me. They feel that there’s value in the design culture that I talk about and I live.

Tell me about the changing roles from a staff architect with A2SO4 to director of A2SX.

The way that 90 percent of firms make money is by repeating the same sort of style many times over. So you start a new project and see what you can take from other projects. It’s hard to be innovative when you get into this path. So why not create this sort of research and design initiative? It’s already hard enough for architecture firms to keep our doors open. Our fees are cut down because of developers and other people. If we do this, but use the university as a relationship, and get a feedback loop going where the students are keeping us informed about the newest things, we can get access to the best talent and we can bring it into the firm. We use their ideas in real-world situations. They help us stay young. This is the new model.

What is it like to create something as massive as a skyscraper — something that will be there long after you’re gone?

Architecture is the largest representation of how society feels about itself. So when you go to the Middle East and you see what they’re doing, it’s a representation of how they feel — it’s how they put forward their power. And it’s sort of strange to be caught up in that, because on one hand you think, “This is horrible, this can’t be right.” They feel unstoppable. They are using architecture not to do good, but to make everyone else in the world understand the power that they have.

Architecture is about those who have the power to build, that’s the bottom line, because architects are not accessible to everybody, and that’s why I didn’t stay. This chair, it’s mass-customized, and that’s accessible.

I understand you’re also working on a handbag design?

Somebody came to us and wanted us to do it, and I agreed to it. It’s harder than I thought. I’m gonna be honest, it’s a challenge to think about handbag design. There’s a lot that goes into it, and I’m thinking of it not from a marketing perspective — I’m thinking of it as a piece of architecture. The working example looks like a big, huge turtle, made out of fiberglass. But, you know, this is design intelligence. I’m glad I failed, because now I’m sort of intrigued by what it’s opened up for us. We’re seeking out collaboration and partners, because we know our core competency is design. Materials and manufacturing, those are two different things, so we’ve carved out a relationship with people who make fiberglass panels, stitch seats.

Indiana is about making things. You know? Like, why aren’t we talking to racing people? … As a result, it’s now turned into a very clean design. It’s really been another successful project in opening up architecture to other venues. In an economy like this, doing just one thing is not a good idea. If you can do five things very successfully, you open yourself up to a number of markets.

Name the biggest design failure in Indianapolis, in your personal opinion.

I’d be committing professional suicide. But here’s what I think. We have a lot of design opportunities, and we’ve not taken advantage of those where other cities have. We seem to have a real issue with public spaces. Not that Military Park, White River State Park and these places aren’t great — but they’re event spaces, they’re not destinations, and there’s a difference. When you set your city up to be an event space, it can only be that to people.

I think the Madame Walker is a beautiful building that needs attention. I think some of the Art Deco buildings on the Circle are beautiful. And I think we underplay those, and other opportunities.

One thing I love about Indiana, they love hiring local talent, but the local talent needs to take it to the next level. We can’t be better if we’re not critical. I think we have talented, talented people, who sustain practice in a great way.

But I’m not interested in sustaining practice. I’m interested in innovating practice. If that means the difference between stone and mortar, steel and glass, then let’s have that conversation. You have to want to send a message out that design matters, that it’s important for imagination, for confidence. Architecture does this for people. It makes them feel connected to a place.