Marwan Al-Sayed, a 39-year-old architect in Phoenix, has a strong affinity for massive walls, deeply pigmented colors, and planar surfaces. He should. The New York-trained architect (Columbia, M.Arch., 1986) was born in Baghdad , went to high school in Tangier, Morocco, and Carbondale, Colo.

Mountains and deserts, plus vernacular architecture of thick earth walls raked with strong sunlight, have clearly had their effect. It’s only appropriate that Al-Sayed should end up in a city with all of the above.

After studying and working in New York City, including a nine-year stint with Tod Williams and Billie Tsien & Associates, Al-Sayed moved to Phoenix in 1994 to supervise construction of Williams and Tsien’s addition to the Phoenix Art Museum . "I wanted to be on a large project every day to understand how a building went together," he says. Soon Al-Sayed found a small, vital community of architects, including Will Bruder, Wendell Burnette, and, nearby in Tucson, Rick Joy. The interaction has been so successful that Al-Sayed, Burnette, and Joy are currently collaborating on the design of Page One Resort and Spa on the Arizona-Utah border.

Al-Sayed had expected to return to New York right after the museum was finished , but then he got two commissions: one, the sculpture garden, fountain, and an entry pavilion for the Phoenix Art Museum; the other, the House of Earth and Light, on the outskirts of Phoenix. Conceived for two firefighters on a limited budget , the house is made of thick, light-colored "poured-earth" walls —a special mix devised by the architect—and a double-layer canvas roof . (In Phoenix, he also met his partner, Mies Grybaitis, a glass artist from Australia who had just set up her own business.) So Al-Sayed stayed and in 1997 opened his own office.

Al-Sayed’s three-person firm (plus part-timers) currently is designing a 25,000-square-foot low-rise office building for Reliance Systems in Chandler, Ariz., plus houses in Oregon and Long Island. "But I miss New York’s density," he admits. His solution: to open a second office in New York .

Suzanne Stephens