Bio

With over 26 years of experience, Jay is a design director and principal at Duda|Paine Architects for diverse corporate, commercial and institutional building typologies and campus master plans. Jay’s approach inspires and integrates design concepts and team members from all disciplines and levels of experience. He is integral in recruiting and mentoring talent to create a collaborative studio culture. His leadership across all phases of complex, large-scale projects is enhanced by his strength as a conceptual and analytical thinker. Jay recognizes the reciprocal relationship between ideas and making: the process of making clarifies an idea, just as an idea informs methods of making. This stimulates the emergence of new concepts and unexpected results.

Since joining Duda|Paine Architects 23 years ago, Jay continues to be motivated by how unique interactions between art, building and landscape inform and influence exceptional design. His notable projects include The Republic and 405 Colorado in Austin, NCR Global Headquarters in Atlanta and Downtown South, one of the first mass timber buildings planned for Raleigh. Jay’s academic experience focuses on student life projects that include NC State University’s Talley Student Union and NC Central University’s Student Center. His master planning for UNC-Pembroke, UNC-Asheville, and Appalachian State University has helped envision comprehensive initiatives and guidelines that shape the future of campuses.

Jay was elevated to principal in 2017. At that time he was leading multiple project teams across commercial and academic markets, helping direct new pursuits and interviews and traveling frequently to support both endeavors all while teaching design studio. He believes that being surrounding by like minded individuals inspires creativity and has worked to establish a recruiting network to ensure a thriving design staff. In the last five years, Jay has continued to direct project teams but realizes his leadership role demands more. In addition to recruiting, Jay has been integral in advancing office wide business and operational strategies that have impacted financial outlooks and new opportunities.

Before joining the firm, Jay gained professional experience at Machado-Silvetti Associates in Boston where he thrived in a professional studio that valued exploration and innovation, yet honored tradition and was founded on the intersection of theory and practice. While working on cultural and institutional projects, he gained a greater appreciation for both conceptual clarity and material quality and detailing.

After Boston, Jay worked for Harry Wolf (Wolf Associates in Malibu) who had inspired his interest in modern architecture with early works like the Mecklenburg County Courthouse in Jay’s hometown of Charlotte.

He teaches as a professor of the practice at NC State’s College of Design, has served as Chair of the AIA Triangle Design Awards and routinely serves as a guest critic, seminar leader, panelist and mentor for students at a variety of universities. As a director on the AIA Triangle Board of Directors and chair of the K-12 Education Outreach Task Force, Jay promotes awareness of the profession, engages the community and emphasizes the impact architecture has on the world to younger generations through mentorship and teaching.