quantum leap; Whether designing a Manhattan apartment building or an African spa, six-foot-tall, South African-born architect Lindy Roy has made a reputation as an original thinker who is not afraid to take risks.

Byline: Julia Reed

In the late nineties, when Lindy Roy lived in Houston and taught at the Rice School of Architecture, she drove a pickup truck, a 1986 black Chevrolet Silverado she had bought off a guy who had kitted it out with extra chrome and fancy hubcaps for his son. "It was great," she says. "And I just drove. I drove to the port; I drove everywhere. Sometimes I'd drive all night and go straight to the university to give my lecture." The image of the six-foot-tall South African architect with the gorgeous head of corkscrew curls tearing up the freeways of east Texas is a striking one, especially as we are in the comparatively urbane confines of Pastis, in ...