In over 33 years of practice, James Wright has worked on projects in 36 countries outside of the United States.  

Having set his sights on becoming an architect in the fifth grade, James graduated summa cum laude from the Ohio State University School of Architecture, which he immediately followed with a Master of Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.  The summer between undergraduate junior and senior years found the young architecture student winning a place in the UN-sponsored International Association for the Exchange of Student for Technical Experience (IAESTE) program, placing him as a draftsman in the office of leading Dutch architect in Amsterdam.  While in his last year of graduate school, he applied for and received a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship for independent study in urban design.  Within a few weeks of completing his last Masters project, he found himself in the heart of socialist Eastern Europe where for nearly a year he investigated urbanization policy and practice behind the Iron Curtain.

Returning to the U.S. in 1976, James began his professional career as a staff designer with Smith, Hinchman & Grylls (now the Smith Group) in Detroit.  The writings of Bill Caudill attracted him to Caudill Rowlett Scott in Houston, where he worked from 1979 to 1991,  primarily on the design of international projects.  James eventually relocated to Washington, DC to provide design leadership as a senior vice president for what was by that time CRSS Architects, in its opening of a new office in the nation’s capital.  Three years later, Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK) acquired CRSS Architects and overnight he became a senior principal of the Washington, DC office of HOK. 

James joined PageSoutherlandPage as a principal in 1997, assuming responsibility for the firm’s then-fledgling Washington, DC office.  As a number of his former key CRS colleagues had since gravitated to PageSoutherlandPage, it was an easy career change to make.  After several trial-by-fire years of repositioning the PSP/DC office from primarily healthcare planning to one with a more diversified portfolio, the Washington office expanded substantially.  A great deal of the growth was a result of very successful design-build teaming relationships, particularly with the U.S. Department of State’s new embassy program.  Between the relationship James built with the State Department in the early 1980s and the present day, he has played key project roles in the design of 19 new State Department embassy and consular compounds.  Today, PSP/DC is successfully transporting its expertise with the design of secure government facilities and the design-build project delivery system to a variety of other federal government clients.  Locally, under James’ design leadership PSP/DC has also designed a number of notable private sector developer projects.

In an effort to further broaden and balance the office workload, he is currently leading PSP/DC design teams on significant new projects for foreign governments and institutions.  Philosophically, James Wright is a proponent of adherence to rational building programming methodologies followed by team driven, user interactive design processes.  His project design portfolio is a rich record of many diverse building types and social, cultural and geographic influences.