With glass and steel

David Hovey, the New Zealand-born, award-winning architect who owns Optima Inc. in Arizona says his dream home would be a contemporary home built of steel and glass built near the ocean in New Zealand where he could enjoy the crashing of the waves and lots of trees. Currently building two condominiums in the Chicago area, Hovey, 64, is also doing the design work on a 55-story condominium building he is planning for the city, one block east of Michigan Avenue near the Tribune Tower. “We have a niche in the Chicago market,” Hovey said. “We provide high-quality multifamily units with outstanding amenities. We try to give our buyer’s a sense of place. We want them to buy into a whole community so we offer fitness centers, indoor pools, huge party rooms, small grocery stores and even dry cleaners.” Hovey has won awards for his ability to integrate a building’s design with its environment and was even the keynote speaker for an event at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West facility in Arizona. He formed Optima in the Chicago area in 1977 and expanded to Arizona in 2000.