\n
Asheley St. John \u201902<\/b><\/p>\n
Architecture Underdog<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> By\u00a0Sara Ann Hutto ’17<\/b> When St. John opened her own architecture firm, 1×1 Design, she started small \u2014 now, the firm boasts nine years of success<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> \u201cIt started with just me and a house.\u201d When St. John opened her own architecture firm, 1×1 Design, she started small \u2014 now, the firm boasts nine years of success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":22842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,8],"tags":[159,230,256,1110,1112,1185],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-22841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumniprofiles","category-my-clemson","tag-alumni","tag-architecture","tag-asheley-st-john","tag-entrepreneur","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-fall-2020-alumni-profiles"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/10\/Asheley-St-John.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22841"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\nThat\u2019s all Asheley St. John had when she started her own architecture firm, 1×1 Design, in her hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. She\u2019d been a professional architect for years but had never started a business \u2014 a scary prospect for anyone but especially for those who go it alone.
\n\u201cI was the underdog,\u201d she says. \u201cI was 31 years old, a single female, starting an architecture firm by myself. The odds were not in my favor.\u201d
\nDespite those odds, St. John has led 1×1 Design successfully for the past nine years. However, owning and running her own firm wasn\u2019t always the plan. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
\n\u201cIf anything, I always said that I didn\u2019t want to [own my own firm],\u201d she laughs. \u201cNever say never. I didn\u2019t think I wanted to be in charge! But it turns out that the business piece and the marketing piece and all of those things that make the firm work are just as interesting and just as challenging as the architecture piece.\u201d
\nSpeaking with St. John, it\u2019s clear that she likes a challenge. At Clemson, she was in the Honors College, rushed a sorority, and participated in student government and student court, all while managing the massive workload that comes with the Clemson architecture program. She was also one of the first to study at the Clemson Architecture Center in Barcelona.
\nAfter graduation, St. John attended graduate school at Georgia Tech for architecture, which eventually led her to a position in Atlanta with a large international firm. She loved the work but missed her family and friends in Columbia. It wasn\u2019t long before she moved back. Five years later, 1×1 Design was born: \u201cI just decided to do it.\u201d
\nNow, 1×1 Design has a portfolio of projects all over Columbia, a range of small and large, private and corporate, contemporary and traditional. St. John describes one of her favorite projects as a \u201clittle jewel box\u201d \u2014 a tiny 1960s building that the firm transformed into the home of Simplesurance, a retail store for individual health insurance, in 2014.
\n\u201cAt the time, that kind of retail store wasn\u2019t something that really existed, so we had to kind of deep dive,\u201d St. John says. \u201cIt was just one of those projects where everything just came together. My team won a design award for it as well, so that doesn\u2019t hurt.\u201d
\nSpeaking of awards, St. John recently received the 2019 American Institute of Architects Young Architects Award, an achievement that has validated not only her work as an architect but also her success as a firm owner. But one of the things St. John is most proud of is her time on the board of trustees for the Clemson Architectural Foundation.
\n\u201cSeeing the connection work between Clemson and the profession and the students all at the same time is just fun to watch,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve traveled around the world with this group. I\u2019ve supported students; I\u2019ve been able to be in class with them and on reviews.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been one of my favorite experiences in my, I daresay, life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
\n