Sarah Gould, AIA, A4LE
President & CEO
“The core of great architecture is connecting people: to people, to places, to community.”
As an owner at KKT, Sarah has been actively leading the company since 2016. She is a driving force in KKT’s development and growth as the company meets the needs of our ever-growing client base. She leads KKT in all aspects of building and site design while actively preserving our nimble, proactive customer service, quality, and culture.
Sarah thrives on the process of synthesis and creation that architecture, education, and business ownership affords. She finds the complex mixture of multifaceted parameters, ordering of information and variables, and integration of best ideas from many voices to be a deeply satisfying pursuit. Ultimately, her goal is to empower KKT’s leadership to solve problems through design for clients while being personally fulfilled in their careers and investing in the community.
Sarah has a wide range of project experience. Her advocacy for and involvement with Discovery Lab highlights the passion which drives her professionally. She supports many aspects of the Greater Tulsa community with time, talents and resources—both personally and corporately. At every opportunity, Sarah advocates for Tulsa, for education, and for Architecture. She believes that human potential is both celebrated and promoted through architecture, and she loves practicing in her home town.
Get to Know Sarah
Education and Experience
- Master of Architecture, University of Texas, Austin
- Master of Science in Architectural Urban Studies, University of Oklahoma—Tulsa
- Bachelor of Arts in French, University of California Los Angeles
- Past President of the Oklahoma Chapter of A4LE
- Incoming Board Chair for Foundation for Tulsa Schools
- A4LE 2020 International Virtual Conference Speaker
- AIA 2020 Eastern Oklahoma Virtual Conference Speaker
- A4LE 2019 International and Regional Conferences, Presenter- “Match Maker: Bringing Value to Clients Through Relationships”
- A4LE 2019 Regional Conference, Presenter- “Growing Pains: Community Engagement and the Impact of Unique Pedagogy During Planning and Design Development”
- AIA 2018 National Conference on Architecture, Selected Presenter- “Visioning Sessions and Client Engagement,”
- Presenter, 2018 AIA Oklahoma Conference: “Discovery Lab: A Design Evolution and Community Partnership”
- OSSBA 2018 Conference Speaker
- Graduate, Leadership Tulsa Class 58
What attracted you to architecture, and when did you know you wanted to make that your career?
Architecture appealed to me because it is a field of synthesis. I love the process of creating that architecture affords. You start with a complex mixture of undefined parameters. You discover things through the process and find a way to order all the information and variables to come up with an integration of the best ideas from lots of voices. That keeps it interesting. I love solving riddles through architecture. I find the pursuit of the solution deeply satisfying.
What skills did experience teach you that formal education did not?
I had a wonderfully culture-rich childhood because my family invited international students into our lives. Three students—from Italy, Japan, and France–lived with us for three different years during my childhood, and we were close friends with a student from Switzerland. Talking with people from other cultures, seeing the world through their eyes, appreciating the varying ways others live and think all helped me care deeply about the world beyond our own horizon. It taught me to value the insights of others and to seek perspectives beyond my experience. In college I studied abroad in Germany, Argentina, and France, then I worked as an Architectural Intern in Paris for nearly a year.
What do you find most rewarding in your career and working with your clients?
Architecture is like cooking: you start with infinite possibilities as you assemble your ingredients, but those ingredients inform what you’ll come up with. Recipes for food and buildings exist, but great meals and buildings are made through the creative process—you add, taste, and adjust, making something delightful not for yourself primarily, but for the joy and satisfactions of people you care about. In both architecture and cooking, you never serve exactly the same thing twice. You get to enjoy a new process and product each time.
If you had a free afternoon to do anything, what would you do?
Make something! Our whole family works together to create things. We all enjoy the process. Sometimes we paint, sometimes we sculpt with clay, and we even build furniture. Recently, we tore down a palette and built a shelf out of it. Building things together is fun and refreshing for all of us.