These six categories include areas that often overlap. Adaptive Reuse, for example, is a form of Historic Preservation. Rand Elliott Architects completed 326 renovation/preservation projects, including the 1912 building in which we office, a Flatiron gem purchased burned and transformed into a modern office, now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Our Interior Architecture work is an extension of every ground-up building we produce, with design based on the character and nature of the exterior and shell. If the project is a build-out of a retail or restaurant space, the first impression must pull people into the space, project the brand’s appeal and create a sequence of rewarding experiences.
What Interior Architecture isn’t is interior decoration, or “interior design,” terms that blur the lines between two distinctly different disciplines and expectations.
New Architecture:
Creating a new structure from scratch on an undeveloped piece of land.
Interior Architecture:
Extending the power of the design concept to the interior space, combining function and aesthetics.
Adaptive Reuse:
Repurposing a building while retaining its historic features.
Master Planning:
Creating a cohesive plan for the way a campus, neighborhood, or other development evolves.
Landscape Architecture:
Designing the outdoor environment – parks or gardens, enhancing adjacent buildings and roads.
Residential Architecture:
An intensely personal process that requires a good listener who can translate personal wishes into highly personal spaces.
Using light to surprising and powerful effect is, for Rand Elliott Architects, a signature proficiency. For us, it’s “using light as a material, like wood or paint.” We believe that light is the spirit of the project.
Elliott and his team’s particular expertise with light brought the London based magazine, Lighting (Illumination in Architecture) to their door. The noted U.K. editor, Jill Entwistle, published an in-depth article in the January 2017 issue titled “Light Verse: Architect and poet Rand Elliott” to share insights and the firm’s work. Lighting (a leading voice since 1969), has since evolved from magazine to digital platform and other initiatives fed by emerging light technologies.
The prevailing role of light in the built environment is one reason it’s important to distinguish between Interior Architecture and interior decorating. The only test for skill with natural light and lighting is the finished product, its atmospheric impact – somewhat like designing the acoustics that shape a positive or negative experience in a given space.
Rand Elliott Architects’ enigmatic Glass Ranch won an international 2024 FutureHome Award from organizers in Milan. The jury was struck by how it captured and orchestrated natural light, and made experiencing light the focus.
“This is architecture made of light, for light. A place where light and its presence is palpable.”
“No one demands such excellence of them: they seek it as an expression of themselves and their clientele.”
Delivering exceptional results for our clients is always our top priority, and the record is found in OUR WORK. Along the way, we’ve been fortunate enough to achieve a series of distinguished accolades. Among them:
Rand Elliott Architects has earned an impressive 373 awards, recognizing decades of innovative and inspiring design.
The firm has won ten National AIA Honor Awards for Architecture — a rare achievement in the architectural world.
Rand Elliott Architects’ work has graced the covers of 11 prominent architectural and design magazines.
Scores of articles and features in major media outlets have celebrated the firm’s creativity and impact.
More than 60 books have highlighted Rand Elliott projects, with collections soon inspiring students at OKC Public Schools and Harding Fine Arts Academy.
Noted critic David Dillon authored Listening to the Land, a dedicated exploration of Elliott’s work, published by l’Archaedizioni in Milan.
The firm earned the 2024 FutureHome Award, part of a prestigious international design program based in Milan.
Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center was featured on the Smithsonian Channel’s How Did They Build That? (Season 3, Episode 2), showcasing its remarkable design.
Architectural Digest’s “50 Best-Designed Buildings in Every U.S. State” (Oklahoma’s is the
Chesapeake Boathouse. Opened in 2006it’s seen as the world’s first modern boathouse It is the cornerstone of OKC’s Boathouse District. where Rand Elliott Architects designed eight modern boathouses and related structure such as the four-story Finish Line Tower and Kayak Boathouse (2006-2016). NOTE: The Boathouse District Master Plan portrays the Oklahoma Riverfront as an impending race, boathouses, docks and boats angled and aligned for a fast start, pointing into the water.
Living and working in Oklahoma has always compelled us to submit work for awards. It’s not about ego, but a way to see how we measure up to the best despite our distance from the world’s creative capitals. Many awards juries and peers who live around the world show surprise in finding such work in Oklahoma. In the end, awards are a way to see how our work not only measures up, but connects.
“If this is the new American architecture, bring it on.”
Rand Elliott Architects relies on a faithful interpretation of the laws of classical architecture, buildings that reflect the Vitruvian ideal of “firmness, commodity and delight.” All three speak to a beauty that many people instinctively express as “cool.”
Modern yet also classical in their adherence to the mathematical rules of proportion and scale are timeless Elliott projects such as Kirkpatrick Oil in Hennessey, OK; 1001 Wilshire, or Heartland HQ in downtown OKC’s historic Automobile Alley.
Heartland’s building made news with the vibrant seven stories it brought to what had long been a void on three prominent downtown arteries. For decades, a block-long surface parking lot had interrupted the rhythm of the area’s “urban wall.” The gap had sapped the area’s energy until this building emphatically filled it, carefully transitioning from mainly two-story buildings to the much taller downtown business core.
One urban citizen-friend (a brilliant OU Professor and Google scholar) asked Rand, “Why do I like this building so much? It’s driving me nuts!” When Rand replied – “it’s the Golden Section,” he groaned, “How could I have missed that?!” He’s a mathematician.
Heartland’s architecture is a study in scale and proportion defined by a mathematical premise, the ancient ratio seen in nature (think of the nautilus) first identified by the Roman architect and engineer, Vitruvius. The takeaway: Using the Golden Section – a.k.a., the Golden Ratio – in any project creates value but adds no cost.
Scale and proportion. It’s how even lower budget buildings can be good buildings.
Place has its own story. Location draws on rich reserves of history, plus sun and weather
conditions that demand close consideration. Each is its own equation: Urban, suburban, rural, downtown, Route 66 or other historic district. It all matters.
Function provides specific parameters for specialized needs.
Rewarding a rigorous pursuit of the project’s purpose, in this place. Expressing the ineffable, when art emerges and the concept comes to life.
We combine insights from a wide range of considerations and translate them into tangible solutions. In our search for the right idea, we generate many ideas. The choices keep coming until you say, “That’s the one. That’s IT!”
We believe limitations inevitably lead to stronger solutions: Budgets that demand resourceful invention, ways to maximize effect with minimal expenditure are often true improvements. Being able to do so is a company signature.
As a project develops, we serve as problem-solvers, with the flexibility to meet real-world conditions and limitations as they come into play. Saving money with a less-expensive material or method is a go-to discipline.
We welcome opportunities to demonstrate creativity and resourcefulness to enhance the value we deliver as a team.
K.J. McNitt Construction was an early, low-budget wonder that happened to promote McNitt’s specialty, tilt-up construction. Later, Cafe 501 in Classen Curve included many sleight-of-hand focal points and low-cost materials that created a high-impact impression. But the concepts themselves – across the board – demonstrate creativity that are textbook examples of “value-added.”
Our Snow Barn at the OKC Will Rogers International Airport is a prime example of making a utility building beautiful (and on budget). Because, why not? In this economic climate, an ability to work with budget constraints is simply mandatory and we’ve made it a specialty
Everything is built on communication – with our client and our team of contractors, from construction to engineering. It’s critical to staying on track and achieving success, together.
Our careful discipline of communication will keep you and our team aligned and everyone clear. Week by week, each new solution generates new momentum and with it, a growing sense of victory.
The talented individuals who are drawn to Rand Elliott Architects have searched for a hands-on studio environment like ours. We thrive on doing good work, being small enough to keep the team in close touch with each other and with our founder, Rand Elliott. It’s no surprise that his leadership, experience, and dedication offer a kind of extended education to those around him – an opportunity to see the profession practiced at the highest level, and learn.
We start with a love of architecture, the creative process, and dedication to inspired design. We admit it’s rigorous, but it’s a thrill to explore and take challenges head-on that never gets old.
Innovative ideas, or building concepts, are closely aligned with cost-consciousness. Yes, it’s our “special sauce.” Resourceful, problem-solving and pioneering ideas has always been a hallmark of Rand Elliott Architects’ work. It’s the surest way to create the “wow” moments our clients expect and deserve. It’s reinventing, reimagining, daring. And inevitably, simply, delivering “more bang for the buck.”
It’s a towering statement in giant steel arrows at the OKC Will Rogers Airport or an unassuming, impeccably tailored office building. The 66-foot tall soda pop bottle at POPS or an art collector’s dream home, hidden in the wild. Route 66. The golden, wrap-around beer atmosphere at Republic Gastropub or the vibrant “red wind” that characterizes RedPrime Steak.
It’s a statement in giant steel arrows at the OKC Will Rogers International Airport (that “landed” on the cover of Interiors magazine) or an impeccably tailored office building. The 66-foot tall soda pop bottle at POPS Route 66 and an art collector’s dream home, hidden in the wild. The golden, wrap-around beer atmosphere at Republic Gastropub or the vibrant “red wind” that characterizes RedPrime Steak.
Architectural innovation starts with seeing potential. A guest apartment with an ethereal spirit. A beautiful, user-focused corporate parking garage – and soon, five. A fresh new take on Georgian architecture rooted in Roman times that led the client to say, “That’s it!” the moment he saw it on paper.
There’s the boathouse that evokes a boat resting in water at the Oklahoma River (Chesapeake Boathouse). It inspired 11 other structures and a master plan for “The Boathouse District,” set to host the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics competition for seven medals.
Innovation sprang from an aging civic tunnel system reborn as a series of color-saturated corridors that use color as a navigation tool (The Underground). A sixth-floor conference room cantilevered so it hovers over the courtyard to create a memorable, one-of-a-kind experience.
The benefit of Rand Elliott Architects’ rejection of trends in favor of timeless principles of architecture and design – even for restaurants and retail – creates enduring value. Properly maintained, our projects look fresh and new, even decades later.
Our clients expect engaging, sometimes thought-provoking and smile-inducing twists. And a knack for capturing what the public and the media describe as “cool.” (As one client put it, “Cool like the far side of the pillow.”) Maybe it’s a talent for creating forward-thinking, or forward-looking solutions.
“Elliott’s creations do not look to Dallas or some other cosmopolitan area for inspiration, so the result is something that feels like Oklahoma, thrust into a future of beauty, function and innovation.”
The Underground, which we completed in 2010, inspired a great story in Islands magazine, published in March of 2025.
RedPrime Steak The continuing success of the first fine steak restaurant (vs. a “steakhouse”) in OKC (opened in 2008) that has since seen close to a dozen new contenders speaks volumes.
RePUBlic Gastropub The immersive glamorous “beer atmosphere” here continues to draw attention and return business to this far from generic-looking “sports bar.” After a decade, it still looks new. All that’s changed is the ever-more dazzling video screens.
The Oklahoma Hall of Fame occupies a classical 1928 limestone building that housed an insurance company. Rand Elliott Architects repurposed it as a visitor attraction and events venue that juxtaposes its lovely bones with technology that tells the stories of outstanding Oklahomans. Its audiences include schoolchildren and organizations year-round. Opened in 2007 with a stately courtyard entrance, the setting for VIP gatherings as well as an elegant welcome.
Our upgrade to Science Museum Oklahoma included relocating the huge facility’s Main Entrance to a thorough reorientation of visitor amenities – the parking lot, a covered walkway, much-needed signage and creating a two-story atrium that makes a grand impression. The museum has been on an upward trajectory ever since, earning kudos from Newsweek as one of America’s Best Science Museums. It will be many years before the work needs any update.
A gold medal winner (Canoe Slalom or Kayak Slalom) turned motivational speaker was a vocal, early fan of OKC’s Boathouse District architecture. He appreciatively described it as futuristic, “like the Jetsons go rowing”! But that’s what modern design does. Decades and even a century later, “mid-century modern” designs look new. And we think they always will. The customers of Knoll and Design Within Reach seem to agree.
The section OUR WORK reflects our professional development across many project categories. Rand Elliott Architects – long known as Elliott + Associates – shows a consistent dedication to architectural excellence, client satisfaction and grateful communities.
It’s the sum of the insights, education and motivation we’ve thankfully gained from our clients, communities, universities, returning clients and peers, all these years.
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