Michael Tavel Architects was founded in 2003.We specialize in: * Sustainable, urban, residential mixed-use town planning and architecture. * Poetic, sensitively-designed environments that support dwelling and engage human experience.Our work is rooted in a deep understanding of the past, of local conditions, and of international precedents. Yet we look forward. We are advocates for urban land use, and urban life. We aspire to connect people both to each other and to a direct relationship with natural resources.Michael Tavel is a fourth generation Coloradoan. He studied fine arts and civil/structural engineering as an undergraduate and interned as an architect in New York City before receiving a masters degree in Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989. He won the top prizes in architectural design at Berkeley including a one-year traveling fellowship. Michael also worked for three internationally known architects: Mark Mack in San Francisco, Christopher Alexander in Berkeley, and Heinz Tesar in Vienna before returning to Colorado in 1991 to teach in the graduate school of the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado. He has lectured locally, nationally and in Europe, Africa, and South America on architecture, landscape, and town planning.While teaching at CU, Michael co-founded and directed a summer study abroad town-planning program in Prague, Czech Republic that worked with city officials on challenging urban projects from 1993 to 2000. In Colorado, Michael simultaneously worked for Hoover Berg Desmond Architects from 1993 to 1996 and was a Senior Associate at Wolff Lyon Architects from 1997 to 2002 gaining extensive professional experience in traditional mixed-use neighborhood development. After one year with Van Meter Williams Pollack Architects in Denver, Michael was offered the Solar Village mixed-use project in Longmont, and with this he founded Michael Tavel Architects.Michael's work has won numerous national and regional awards including ones from Progressive Architecture, AIA, ASLA and HUD. He was runner up for Colorado Young Architect of the Year in 2007. Michael Tavel Architects has won ten awards for their first two major projects: Solar Village Prospect (with Solar Village LLC) and Geos Neighborhood (in collaboration with David Kahn Studio). Geos, in Arvada Colorado, will be America's largest net-zero energy neighborhood.