Who We Are

In the late 60’s the Colorado firm Architects-Engineers West, Inc. was founded by architect Norm Hodge, and structural engineer and surveyor Cliff Pallesen, focusing on traditional architectural and engineering design for buildings, as well as civil engineering and surveying projects.

In the mid 1970s, Architects-Engineers West started performing building code reviews for new projects, as a service for their municipal clients.  In the early 90’s this expanded to include providing plan review services for buildings and facilities owned by the State of Colorado. This firm eventually changed names to Architectural Environments West and became known as AE-West, and added building inspections to their scope of services. Upon Norm Hodge’s retirement in the mid 1990s, the state plan review and inspections contract was acquired by architect Gary Nickerson’s new firm, C-West Code Consultants, Inc.  Since 1996, C-West Code Consultants, Inc. has been a pioneer in the region for building code consulting and plan reviews, and one of the only such firms that provides full architectural and engineering plan reviews on all projects large and small, performed primarily by licensed architects and professional engineers.

Horne Engineering Solutions, LLC was started in 2006 by structural engineer James Horne to address the structural engineering needs within fast growing communities in Colorado, Wyoming, and other western states by focusing on emerging market sectors including building code plan review consulting services, specialty structures and materials such as cold formed steel construction, steel stairs, prefabrication and contractor design assist projects. Horne Engineering looks towards new materials, improved concepts and methods of building and managing construction projects as the future of the construction industry. James Horne is a nationally certified ACEC Engineering Expert Witness, and ICC certified steel special inspector.

In January 2018, C-West Code Consultants and Horne Engineering Solutions merged operations to form AEC-West Consultants, in order to better serve our clients by broadening our scope of services into more full service architectural and engineering design services, plan reviews, forensic consulting, inspection and special inspection services.

Our hope is that you will find that working with AEC-West has many advantages for you. We are committed to providing comprehensive, high quality services in a timely manner. Please feel free to contact us at any time to learn more about how AEC-West can serve you!

Architectural – Engineering – Code Consulting – Inspections – Special Inspections