ABOUT

 

 

Reveal has been launched by long time friends, JV DeSousa and Ali Gidfar, who met as graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin Architecture School in the early 1980’s.

 

Ali and JV began collaborating on architectural projects starting in late 2000.

 

 

 

 

Ali is a licensed architect in the Sates of Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico, as

well as being NCARB certified.

 

JV is licensed in the States of Colorado and California.

 

 

 

Bio: Ali Gidfar

 

Ali achieved his life long goal and got his start as an architect in New York City at the office of I.M.Pei and partners, where he worked on the Bank of China in Hong Kong, The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., as well as the San Francisco Main Library, among others. These Pei years instilled a deep appreciation of the science of building constructibility and detailing for both technical and visual excellence.

 

Returning to Colorado in 1993, he continued his involvement with prominent projects around the world and the US, including the Inchon International airport in Seoul, Tokyo Midtown in Tokyo, and the renovation and expansion of Queens Center in New York City.

 

These large project brought with them planning and design skills that have been instrumental in completing successful smaller buildings, including the Valdez Perry Branch library for the City of Denver, and multiple private residences, including homes in Aspen.

 

The financial crisis of 2008 opened new doors to a set of opportunities in affordable multifamily housing. The first of these was the wining of an international competition to design the Paisano Green Community in El Paso, TX, the first HUD financed LEED Platinum, near net zero project in the US.

 

Since the completion of Paisano Green, Ali has collaborated in the design of multiple multifamily projects, and developed a keen interest in the creation of public and private spaces that foster quality personal living in tandem with community spaces that encourage interpersonal interaction that strengthen community bonds.

 

After graduating from a British Public school in 1977, Ali attended CU Boulder, where he received a Business degree, followed by a Master of Architecture degree in 1985 from the University of Texas at Austin.

 

Ali served on the board of Summit Middle Charter School for three years, and as Chairman for two of those years.

 

 

 

Bio: jv DeSousa

 

While in graduate school jv became interested in the place sensitive, environmental architecture being built in Australia. After completing his degree he moved to Australia to spend time working and learning about sustainable architecture rooted in place. When he returned to the United States he worked in southern California at Anshen + Allen Los Angeles (now CO Architects) and Pamela Burton and Company. At A+A he took part in the design of several large research facilities for institutional and higher education clients. Among the projects he worked on was the east wing of the Salk Institute. At the landscape architecture firm of Pamela Burton he furthered his interest in the relationship between a building and its site.

 

In 1994 jv returned to Boulder to set up his own practice. There he teamed with Ann Cuthbertson and together they worked along with the developer Dana Crawford to save the last remaining structure in the Central Platte Valley after the demolition of the freight yards, a derelict flour mill on Twentieth Street alongside the Platte River. That structure was reborn as the Flour Mill Lofts in 1998.

 

jv has designed single family, multi-family, commercial, hospitality and educational facilities. In 2010 he was a founding partner of WORKSHOP8 when he teamed with Ali and others in designing a competition winning entry for an affordable multi-family structure in El Paso, Texas. That project, Paisano Green Community, was designed to be the most energy efficient, low carbon footprint public housing project in the United States. Now completed, PGC generates nearly all of the energy it uses on site.

 

After leaving W8 jv designed Parkside Terrace, a new 65 unit affordable multi-family housing property in Hobbs, New Mexico. That project was awarded first place in MFA’s 2015 design competition for low income housing tax credits. The additional points received as a result of winning the competition was critical to the project receiving an allotment of credits.

 

jv and Ali have now set up REVEAL as a community oriented design firm focused on improving the human condition and maximizing the social benefit of the projects they work on. jv’s passion is affordable housing. He likes working on housing for those in need and appreciates the gratitude communicated by those who live in the buildings he designs.

 

jv is a member of Housing Colorado and has served on the organization’s membership committee. A strong believer in the power of interdisciplinary workshops and co-created solutions, jv is active in design charrettes for affordable housing providers through Housing Colorado and the Design by Community organization.