Brian Heiss ’00 (M.A.) is almost too good at computer-based renderings. Just months after graduation, he was hired by Gensler Architects, a very large firm with offices all around the world, to do a rush design job on an enormous project—a convention center Hilton in Fort Worth. It was no small accomplishment that Heiss produced the required computer animation in one week.

• But he doesn’t want to get stuck being “the visualization guy.” And he doesn’t necessarily want to keep working on such big projects. “You can’t put your stamp on it,” he says of the Hilton project.

• Heiss definitely is one for making his individual mark. He came to Rice with a B.A. in architecture from Bennington college in Vermont. He describes his Bennington training as “unconventional” and “nontraditional,” and those adjectives equally apply to his work at Rice and beyond. Witness his “Living Projection” studio project, referred to by Onezieme Mouton.

• Given his temperament and talents, it’s not surprising that Heiss has taken a leave of absence from Gensler. “I still work part time for them when they need me in a pinch,” he says, “but I see myself in a smaller firm.” In fact, he sees himself as branching out from architecture altogether. “I’m not driven to become an architect,” he says. Rather, he loves all kinds of design. “You don’t necessarily go to architecture school to learn how to be an architect. You go to learn to design and to think about design.”

• In the meantime, Heiss is back at the Rice School of Architecture in a different role. “I’m currently teaching an undergraduate third-year studio and a seminar called Video 1, 2, 3,” he says, but that’s the least of his activities. His open-mindedness toward materials has led him into the realm of art.

• In 2003, Heiss will have an exhibition, created in collaboration with two other Rice alums, Darshan Amrit ’98 and Peter Weir Clarke ’00, at Houston’s Lawndale Art and Performance Center. “The show is a personal project titled ‘Transvision,’” he says. “My contribution will be about 15 different redesigned televisions and video pieces to go on the TVs.” Heiss’s redesign of the television sets addresses the repackaging of consumer items. “You rotate the whole television to change the channel and volume,” he says. “I want to know if you can kill ‘couch-potato culture’ by changing the object.”

• If Heiss doesn’t already sound like an unusually free-spirited young architect/designer, consider his moonlighting job—as a model! The tall, slim, handsome young man recalls buying materials in Texas Art Supply one day, when someone asked if he were a model. “No,” he answered, but the question triggered the idea, and he began looking for modeling opportunities. He’s appeared on the cover of several local publications, including the ultra-slick Paper Magazine. For that shoot, he portrayed a fictional “hip young architect on leave from the Koolhaas Rotterdam office.” Heiss chuckles. “It’s like a fantasy version of my real life.”

• Now Heiss is struggling with the temptation of going into modeling full time. “Maybe I should go to London and get rich, then do what I want to do. Or maybe I should stick with this and get more respect for what I’m actually doing.”

• While he wouldn’t claim that studying architecture leads one inevitably into modeling, he does find similarities between the fields. “Modeling exposes you to design culture. ‘Who’s making a really good shoe?’ and ‘How do objects relate to the body?’ These are the same kinds of things architects worry about.”