Steve Badanes went to Princeton University in the late 60s to study architecture because he liked both art and carpentry, and thought this would be a way to unite them. Once there, he discovered that there was a division of labor. Architects were office-bound professionals in suits, sketching hypothetical structures on drafting boards. Builders were something else entirely: tradesmen in hard hats wielding hammers and bulldozers, following someone else’s rigid plans.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Badanes had other ideas. He wanted to practice architecture as if it were sculpture. He wanted his plans to evolve as they were built, and he wanted to know the land he was working on intimately. He went through the master’s program at Princeton anyway, and after finishing he and a couple of like-minded classmates, Jim Adamson and John Ringel, began taking commissions for design and construction. For each project Badanes would arrive on-site with his 1956 Airstream trailer and set up camp. He would remain for the duration.
In the old days, Jersey Devil built on a shoestring, trading services when necessary. When one of the troupe needed legal services, for example, a divorce lawyer got a highly innovative deck on the back of his suburban home. Now, Badanes says (in a drawl that sounds more like the Florida panhandle where he’s been working lately than his native New Jersey), “We’re not looking to be cheap anymore, though we’re not egregious either. We’re involved in high quality and we’re very specialized. We work on unusual sites, difficult sites, we’re energy-efficient.” Last year Jersey Devil put up a beach pavilion for the city of Seaside, Florida, and Badanes says they would like to do more public projects, “buildings that more people can use.” Badanes still lives on-site, “unless it’s a fishbowl,” but at 49 is “slowing down,” heading more in the direction of teaching and public work. He just received an adjunct teaching post at the University of California at San Diego, which will have him building eight weeks a year in developing countries. The Jersey Devil office is still a post office box and a telephone number in Stockton, New Jersey.
