Carl Schaffer is partner of Scottsdale, Arizona based AAD, who together with Mike Steveson took the reigns of the architectural firm from David Udkow and Bill Weikert in 1992. Founded in 1976, the company currently bills over $6 million per year. AAD are specialists in high profile retail and food and beverage design with 48 state registration and employ over 60 employees. Their client list includes Planet Hollywood, Universal Studios, Host Marriott Services, Warner Bros Studio Stores, Disney, Citibank and many immediately recognizable corporations. The company has worked on over 500 projects throughout the United States and Europe.

Schaffer joined AAD as a designer in 1978 when the small firm was just beginning to work with interior architecture and roll-outs for retail, restaurant and food service markets. During his nineteen years with the company, Schaffer’s expansive design vision has resulted in a complete restructuring of the firm’s concentration and the quadrupling of its size. Today, AAD is hired by some of the nation’s most prestigious corporations who credit the firms’ designs with significantly impacting their financial growth. Under his guidance, AAD has been named one of the nation’s top ten design firms by Visual Merchandising and Store Design, one of the top 100 firms in the U.S. by Interior Design magazines and The National Association of Store Fixtures manufacturers (NASFM) awarded AAD the Grand Prize for its design of the F.A.O. Schweetz flagship at Watertown Place in Chicago.

Schaffer recently oversaw a re-imaging of AAD that better communicates their talents to their clients: formerly known as Associates in Architecture & Design, the firm is now known as AAD: interiors, architecture, identity.

Schaffer began his career in Long Island, New York in 1974 where he attended the New York Institute of Technology. An innovative designer, Schaffer developed a business philosophy early in his career that integrates psychology, marketing, entertainment and technology into architecture. Schaffer’s theories and partner Mike Steveson’s operational acumen coupled with their common dedication to utilizing state-of-the-art technology, serve to create some of the nation’s most cutting-edge retail design.

Schaffer, his wife, and two children divide their time between their homes in Scottsdale, Arizona and Park City, Utah.

# # #

Back to: Associates in Architecture & Design, Ltd.Background