Architect wants his hometown to look the best it can

It's personal because he wants Tucson to look good and wants the structures to respect Tucson's environment.

Paulus is Tucson-born and -reared, which makes his work that much more important to him. Turning his passion loose on his ideas and designs, Paulus is staking his career — and expectations — on Tucson's future.

"I'm so committed," said the 43-year-old Paulus, a graduate of Amphi High School and the University of Arizona's School of Architecture.

After spending four years working as an architect in Los Angeles, Paulus returned to Tucson and started his firm in 1995. Since then he has stamped Tucson with his modern, eco-friendly, urban architecture.

He has earned numerous regional and national awards for designs of homes and other residential buildings.

Paulus and his partners transformed the 1920s Arizona Ice and Cold Storage Co. at 1001 E. 17th St., a former hulking concrete structure, into the Ice House Lofts, 51 sleek, urban lofts. Barrio Metalico consists of nine free-standing corrugated- skinned houses across the street from the Ice House.

He is the architect for Downtown's Martin Luther King Jr. apartment conversion project. The building at East Congress Street and North Fifth Avenue will be converted into 96 market-rate and affordable apartments. New commercial-retail use will be added to the project, which Paulus calls One North Fifth.

Plans are under way for another Downtown conversion project. Paulus and his partners are looking to transform the 1917 Julian Drew block at South Fifth Avenue and East Broadway into 53 condos and commercial use.

Paulus' projects are not exclusive to Downtown. But, like many Tucson natives who recall a vibrant Downtown, he'd like to see a revitalized Downtown.

"This is where we would buy stuff," said Paulus, who remembers his seamstress mom, Shirley Paulus, driving his police officer dad, Ray Paulus, to work Downtown.

His architectural firm of eight people is in Downtown. And he and his business-partner wife, Randi Dorman, and Skye Paulus, their 4-year-old daughter, live south of Downtown in the Ice House.

Of course, the hustle and bustle of Downtown is long gone. But the Martin Luther King Jr. project will be key for Downtown's resuscitation. It is almost alone among the faltering or invisible Rio Nuevo residential projects.

Paulus calls his work with older buildings, which he prefers, as "unbuilding." He improvises, carves up the structure and gives it new twists, lines and life, like a jazz musician reworking an old tune.

"Working on old buildings gives reverence to the past but brings something new and different," he said while walking through the gutted MLK project, which is scheduled to be completed in August 2009.

Looking at a conversion project like a musician is not a stretch for Paulus, a bass player and self-taught musician. Paulus joined his first band while in high school. He joked that he'd rather play bass than design buildings.

But he quickly added, "We're having a lot of fun, actually."

In addition to taking on a project like a musician, he also has the mind and stamina of a marathon runner. The patience and focus he learned while running long miles during his teenage years help him guide projects, some of which can take three to four years from inception to completion.

But it's his love of our Sonoran Desert and our connection to the delicate environment that drives his work. He designs structures to cause less stress to the environment.

In the Ice House project, some of the original building material was reused.

The Metalico home has silos to collect rainwater, as do the 22 lofts at IndigoModern, an infill project at East Third Street and North Richey Boulevard north of El Con Mall. And the MLK apartments will keep 7,000 tons of concrete out of the landfill.

Paulus loves the desert, which he hikes. He loves his hometown, where he hopes his designs and ideas will make a positive difference.

Because his work is personal.

DID YOU KNOW

The 96-unit public housing Martin Luther King Jr. apartments — now the subject of a conversion project that Rob Paulus is the architect for — opened for elderly and disabled tenants in 1970. It cost $1.4 million to build at East Congress Street and North Fifth Avenue.

In 1993, the city completed a $1.8 million renovation with federal funds. The studio and one-room apartments were given new flooring, electric stoves, refrigerators, bathroom fixtures, cabinets, furniture and air conditioning.

As part of the renovation, a 55-foot-long mosaic mural was placed along the top two floors on the building's west-facing wall. New Mexico ceramic artist Eddie Dominguez designed the mural. According to a 1993 Star article, 694 elementary school students, 81 adults and 30 artists helped create it.

The mural will remain largely intact, said Emily Nottingham, director of the city's Community Services Department.