Architect David Hovey Jr., AIA, president and principal architect of the luxury real estate development firm Optima, was internationally recognized with two prestigious awards honoring his proprietary Optima DCHGlobal modular building system including the 2019 Architecture MasterPrize and the 2019 American Architecture Award.

Hovey’s Arizona Courtyard House, a private residence in Paradise Valley, won the 2019 Architecture MasterPrize for Architectural Design/Residential Architecture. Completed in 2017, the home was built in less than five months using the Optima DCHGlobal system that Hovey Jr. patented, and demonstrates the flexibility of the system to create a home of linear volumes. The site is strategically arranged to define a private courtyard, with the main house to the south and east, a fitness center and lap pool to the north, and serene mountain views to the west.

Whale Bay House, a private residence in Kerikeri, New Zealand also designed by Hovey Jr., took home the 2019 American Architecture Award in the private homes category, which is among the organization’s top honors. Designed using his Optima DCHGlobal modular housing system, the home is situated on a 50-acre site overlooking Whale Bay and sits lightly on the land with cantilevered floors that minimize sight disruption and connect to nature through dissolving the division of interior and exterior space. In 2018, Whale Bay House also won the Architecture MasterPrize for Architectural Design/Residential Architecture and Architecture Magazine’s 2018 Residential Architect Design Award.

“Both the American Architecture Awards and the Architecture Masterprize have a reputation of year after year awarding the best of the best in American and international architecture and it’s an honor to be a recipient,” Hovey Jr. says.