Donald Innis

Donald Alywn Innis, (born in 1931 in Olean, New York), is an American architect based in San Diego, California. Innis is also an inventor and engineer and has pioneered the idea of floating real estate, specifically the notion of a floating airport using pneumatic stabilized platform (PSP) technology which he has developed and patented through his company, Float Incorporated. Innis designed several notable San Diego landmarks, including the 1970s remodeling of the San Diego Broadway Pier (one of the first pier designs to make use of significant above water landscaping and greenery), the master plan for the San Diego Embarcadero, and Terminal One of the San Diego International airport. He is a long-standing member of the American Institute of Architects.

Innis is the middle son of Greta Matson Innis (Swedish-American, b. 1905, d. 1965) and Alwyn Osman Innis (American, b. 1896, d. 1974). His father Alwyn was an American-born RCAF squadron leader during WWII and a young American foreign exchange fighter pilot ranked as a Second Lieutenant in the British RFC's No. 46 Squadron during the final years of World War I. Donald Innis' father, Alwyn Osman Innis, had trained at Canada's RFC camp at Bourden before being commissioned and sent to England. Innis' father returned to the U.S. when he left the RFC (then the RAF) in 1919 to become vice president and general manager of the Columbus Aviation Company. Innis' father, Alwyn, would work for the S.S. Kresge dime stores, opening and managing several all across the country, including in Olean, New York, where son Donald Innis was born in 1931. A.O. Innis would later move to Chicago, Illinois to open his own dimes stores, Alywn Stores, only to close them several years later to re-join the RCAF during World War II and moving the entire family to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. After WWII, the Innis family would move back to Chicago, Illinois and then ultimately to San Diego, California.

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