Designer Biography: Mike Fischer

Designer Mike Fischer of Santa Fe Adobe Design has spent most of his adult life living, designing, and building houses in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  For over thirty years and through over 100 projects, this award-winning designer has carved out a niche building what he calls “sculptural residences” which combine an organic aesthetic with traditional adobe material, territorial and Pueblo influences, and a keen appreciation for the natural surroundings in which a home is built.

Born in Washington state and raised on Mercer Island, Fischer attended the University of Washington school of architecture in the early 1970s.  The architectural vogue of the time leaned towards International Modernism, which meant lots of boxy buildings with clean straight lines combined with design flourishes.  Even then, Fischer knew he wanted to build homes with a more organic feel to them, though he didn’t know how he would realize the forms that interested him the most.

After school, Fischer moved to Santa Fe, where he took a job as a construction worker to learn local methods of building.  Coming from the northwest, adobe was unlike anything he’d experienced before.  Made of mud and straw, adobe was like clay in the ways it could be used, applied – and sculpted – into forms that were impossible with wood, or red brick.  It was the beginning of a love affair that would inform Fischer’s aesthetic as a designer for the rest of his career.

One of Fischer’s earliest seminal projects as a designer was for the musician Charles van Maanen’s music & photo studio.  van Maanen lived on Santa Fe’s east side, and Fischer built the project the old-fashioned way, with double walled adobe and a notched-beam, interior loft.  Here, Fischer learned an important lesson about what makes building with adobe so enduring and special compared to other styles of building.

“In working with adobe one of the things you discover is that making things “perfect” is neither possible nor especially desirable,” said Fischer.  “Adobe is not a machine-precision type of material, and the hand-made quality of slight imperfections gives a house a kind of warmth and hominess that can’t be found in boxier straight-line constructions.”

With the van Maanen project, Fischer’s career as a designer and builder was established, and he began to seek projects to match his ambitions as well as a growing personal philosophy about urban design.  Located in downtown Santa Fe, the Tano Pueblo project brought together a number of residences into a classic village-style compound.  It would garner Fischer wide local acclaim as well as an award for “a new project in the old style.”

“At the time I moved to Santa Fe, there were still a number of active communes in northern New Mexico,” said Fischer.  “I liked the idea of multiple families sharing open space, creating an instant community where individual homes still allowed for personal privacy.  I think it’s a great concept for urban development that still works when applied well.”

The increased stature brought on by the award began to bring Fischer a growing list of high-end clients interested both in his ideas and his designs.  Patrons would include Vice-President of General Electric Glen Hiner and his wife Sara, Steven Wolf, CEO of United Airlines, Santa Fe gallerists Nedra & Richard Meteucci, and Bud Adams, owner of the Houston Oilers.

Today, Mike Fischer is firmly established as one of Santa Fe’s premiere original designers of what he rightfully calls “sculptural residences.”  Fischer homes begin with an open piece of land that is comprised of similar compounds as the adobes that he’ll layer on top to build a house.  In some cases, like the Crescent House, he’ll excavate the land in order to situate the house within it, creating a bond between a house and the earth that is apparent to those clients fortunate enough to live in a Fischer home.

“Adobe has been used for thousands of years for good reason,” he said.  “It insulates well, keeping a house cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  Building houses with it keeps us close to the earth and allows us to experience the organic flow of nature.”

412 W. San Francisco St., Santa Fe, NM 87501 • (505) 820-0790