The Designer

Greg Armstrong
Founder, General Contractor & Principle Designer

Exposed to many facets of industry, Gregory has brought much of his knowledge to the design world. As a celebrity designer, he gives much attentiveness and thought in every project to completion. His background includes home theater design, interior architecture, landscape and garden design, show and set design, event and project management.

Bio:

Principal Designer & General Contractor, Gregory Armstrong, was born in Los Angeles, and raised in North County, San Diego.  Like most San Diegans, he loves the well-balanced pace of San Diego and the fast pace of Los Angeles.  While both offer much opportunity, Greg also enjoys recreational camping, hiking, the gym, designing automobiles, homes, and landscapes in his time of reflection.  He brings much of his off-work time as inspiration to his many vast and changing project profiles.  As a child, Greg grew up in a home with a creative mother, who painted pictures and influence by a grand-aunt who had a PBS portraiture painting show.  His father was an electrical engineer, designing hardware that runs some of the largest data bases in the world.  His father also was an avid woodworker who always had to get the best tool in creating furniture and decor items.  It was common to find Greg swathing in the arts, using tools in the woodshop, or soldering circuits, combining LEDs, capacitors, circuit boards and other items to create whatever project was on his mind.  As a child, he was the ultimate geek, building three story forts and large go-carts that had suspension and air-conditioned chairs.  Greg quickly learned that first building a great foundation led to the building's success; and designing vehicular structures for safety meant reducing risk for injury, which translates into much of his ethos today in any project.

Greg's abilities became outwardly apparent in his formative education years.  In high school, Greg was elected to design the Senior Float for Homecoming, which turned out to attract local media.  The float featured a 30-foot wingspan robotic Eagle that mimicked flying, and featured the theme 'Wizard of Oz' to dedicate San Pasqual High School's new football stadium.  In college Greg ran the advertising department of the college paper and successfully brought the General Motors Marketing Internship Program to 1st place for his college, two years in a row, beating national colleges, including the Ivy League colleges.  This program involved event planning, construction, budget, client (General Motors) liaise, marketing and advertising research and campaigns, local jurisdiction municipalities, and project execution.  Shortly thereafter Greg was asked to help write and edit the number one advertising text book under Irwin Publishing, Contemporary Advertising with William Arens.  It wasn't to Greg's surprise that his final marketing course at San Diego State was the book he helped write.  Greg later won other national level awards and was offered an internship at Team One Advertising in El Segundo.  Greg graduated with a degree in Advertising and a degree in Marketing.

While in college Greg held a job at a consumer electronics store, which later turned into new technology debut events involving the media.  Greg's involvement with the media granted him a spot on KUSI TV Sunday morning as the "Gadget Guru". He also worked with the roll out of HDTVs first release in San Diego.  He also helped plan and executed several new store openings and held IASCA sound-off competition events from California to Texas.  For a few years, Greg also enjoyed designing ski apparel, incorporating fabric technology such as Gore-tex, Dupont fibers, and lifestyle usage requirements.

Greg combines these capabilities into what he does now, General Contracting and Design at many interesting levels for the past 15 years.  Greg's first project was to design and build the interiors of a multi-million dollar Christian Publication company's logistical move, with critical path management and flair to design an employee on-site "Starbucks".  He has worked on projects as small as installing a dog door, many residential and commercial renovations, to the installation of a 6,000 square foot Santa Monica rooftop deck complete with gardens and an orchard, 17 floors up with one small elevator.

Sevral years ago, Greg met world renowned landscape architect and HGTV host, Jamie Durie.  They instantly hit it off, becoming friends and work associates.  Greg subcontracted his company to run Jamie Durie's company in the US and was fist issued the task of maintaining all the celebrity clients.  He worked on many media events, and executed the design build for his TV shows, also appearing on the latest FYIs "Outback Nation".  Armstrong Gregory successfully turned the Avalon into a living garden with Jamie Durie for Global Green's Oscar Party. Simultaneously, Greg managed Jamie Duries U.S. operations to help design, engineer, manufacture and create distribution and sale of his new custom furniture lines.

Since then, Greg is continuing relationships in the design and build community and creating profitable environments for clients and luxurious outdoor and indoor residential spaces.

This breadth of experience is what is compounded into the expertise offered by Armstrong Gregory Design + Build.