After more than 30 years in business, Broomfield, Colorado-based Allred & Associates focuses on finding solutions for its clients. “Our clients come first,” Brent Allred states. “Listening to their needs and applying our experience” remains foundational to the company’s success.

Allred & Associates handles commercial architecture across the board, with a particular focus on fire stations. “We do have a following and clientele in fire stations that are very devoted to us,” says Allred. “We have such vast experience and knowledge in that particular building type.” In fact, the team has completed more than 100 fire stations and ancillary buildings.

As a result, Allred & Associates is able to meet the unique requirements of each fire department. “We enjoy taking that experience and applying it to their needs and their challenges, specific to their district or their fire department,” Allred affirms, “and then also taking the context of the building and applying design to it to make it unique and interesting, because we believe in the community and giving back to the community and providing a design appropriate for that. So, we approach each building as if it’s unique, and we want it to be a statement for that fire department district.”

As a small firm, Allred & Associates’ lead architects are able to get involved in every project. “That is a great advantage,” Allred says. “When we meet with a fire district chief and we start a project, I am there.” He and the other lead architects “are there all the way through, and the chiefs really like that. They can call me up anytime during the project.”

The company’s small size also allows for better internal communication. “As a small firm, we talk intimately amongst ourselves about the projects, and we resolve things, and then we keep those solutions current and apply them to other projects.”

This approach allows the team to develop strong, long-lasting relationships with clients. “So many of our fire stations are repeat clients,” says Allred. “In fact, 95 percent of all our work comes from existing clients and fire stations.” The team still works with their very first client within the sector, North Metro Fire and Rescue District. “We really love working with them and serving them, and keeping them as a client is a high priority,” he says.

When designing a building, the team is mindful of four major areas. “One is the form—what does the form want to represent in terms of its appearance and how it relates to the architecture, use, and function?”

The second area is the function. “Function is the relationships between spaces—all kinds of relationships: proximity, security, visual, audible, those kinds of relationships relating to the space. So, we approach architecture by asking, ‘how does the building want to function?’”

Time is the third aspect to consider. “Every building is subject to time, and as creatures of this Earth, we move through time and space, and things change,” Allred says. “So, we ask the question: ‘This particular function, this space—is it going to change over time? Do we need to plan for expansion?’ We need to include flexibility.”

Budget is the fourth area that must be considered with every project. “How do all of these things work within the budget?” he asks. “Imagine four circles of those things combined, and the sweet spot is where they intersect, and our goal is to get to that point.”

Allred uses a Pueblo City Fire Department project as an example of how the firm successfully finds the intersection among these circles. “In Pueblo, in order to get to a net zero station, we had to consider the energy uses of the building and consider how it was insulated, how the glass was oriented over the shade,” he explains. “Pueblo tends to have a drier, hotter climate, so finding shade and so forth was really important. We also wanted to utilize the ground conditions, so we introduced the geothermal loop system. That loop system actually runs both cooling and heating within the building, and that allowed us to use the least amount of energy in supplying that building with the necessary heating, cooling, and comfort, and then we offset that by putting photovoltaic on the roof. So, it made it net zero. The photovoltaic system on the roof is now collecting energy and offsetting energy that’s used to run the geo loop system.”

Aesthetics were also carefully considered in the budling’s design. “We wanted to tie it into the community, so we made really thick walls as if they’re adobe walls,” he says. “Pueblo has adobe architecture historically as a part of their history, and so we made these really thick walls and then created these huge overhangs, but we didn’t make them literal. We made them contemporary looking.”

Protecting firefighters’ health is another key component of the firm’s designs. “They’re often exposed to carcinogenic elements in their firefighting,” Allred points out. “So, we have a hot zone and a cold zone within the building.” The hot zone is where the firefighters come in with their trucks and gear after fighting fires. “They’re taking off all their gear and they’re putting it in this area, and then we pressurize that area so that air from that area is flowing away from any living quarters,” he explains. “Then they can go into a shower/locker area where they can shower down and clean, and that’s pressurized. That’s kind of an interim between the hot zone and cold zone, so all the particulates are pressurized and blowing toward the hot zone, and then they can leave that zone and then go into their living quarters, their day rooms, their bunk rooms, their kitchen, and so forth.”

These forward-thinking design elements are “kind of new to the fire industry,” Allred says. “They’re becoming more popular in their use in fire stations. We started introducing these about 10 years ago.”

Natural light is another element that is carefully considered in the company’s work. “One of the things that we believe strongly in is daylight and views as they relate to mental health,” he says. “This applies generally to anybody—all of our clients—but particularly to our fire station clients. They’re under a lot of stress a lot of the time, and they obviously need to have decompression areas. We design those into the architecture.” As a result, “our fire stations tend to have more glass and more views.”

Connecting people with nature “is a healthy mental process that I believe is really needed in today’s architecture,” Allred continues. “There are so many mental stresses that people experience, and to provide that connection with nature, to views and natural daylight and transparency, that inspires people to greater productivity and greater personal health and self-awareness.”

The team is eager to keep working with their established clients while welcoming new ones. “We continue to see ourselves involved in fire stations, and we’re becoming known in the North Denver metro area as the firm to go to for architecture in terms of fire stations,” says Allred.

“We continue to see that grow. We see ourselves growing into the mountains further and bringing our experience into the mountain communities as well as more in the Front Range area. We are excited about bringing our services to other parts of the country in terms of fire station experience. I think we have a lot to offer, and we see ourselves contributing significantly to other fire districts and helping them achieve their goals.”

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Griffin and Enright started their firm with a strong footing in the field, as both had experience as professors of architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCIA) in Los Angeles. Their business union made them both co-founders of the renamed Griffin Enright Architects, a business that was then taken to Culver City, California in 2001, where it remains to this day.

The firm has been around since the introduction of digital tools such as 3D modeling into the architecture space, and was among the first in the industry to integrate those practices with classical methods like drafting by hand. Today, the company embraces technology while maintaining the same work ethic and design mentality from which it made its name.

Although its résumé is richly varied, much of the firm’s work lies in custom homebuilding. Griffin Enright has designed houses locally in the Los Angeles area and other parts California and has also worked on international projects as far afield as China, Korea, and parts of Europe.

“We are known for an integration of architecture, interiors, and landscape,” says Griffin, and the firm has garnered nearly 100 design awards for its efforts thus far. Its global reputation as a boutique firm that focuses on high-design projects tailored to the needs of its clients has firmly taken shape.

New projects are never hard to find in today’s landscape, as clients often find the firm because of the ubiquity and high-quality nature of its body of work. Griffin says that the process of working with clients is an inherently intimate one because clients are often visionaries of their own design. In this regard, helping to realize the unique qualities of an idea is naturally a very relational and interactive experience.

After a series of meetings to build trust and gain an understanding of the client’s needs, including discovering the ways in which the client lives within a space, the firm applies different concepts like 3D modeling to allow for as many customization options as possible. Attention must also be paid to the myriad elements that impact the experience of a house—such as how natural light interacts with the character of a building—to create something that marries the practicalities of design with the client’s desires. Coupled with this is the importance of context—the firm’s work “underscores connections to the surrounding urban fabric and landscape, allowing urban context, architecture, and landscape to be experienced in new, unanticipated ways,” says the company.

Projects are often transformative to the lives of clients, says Griffin, in that the work often represents a significant positive change in their lives. Some of Griffin Enright’s most notable endeavors in home and building construction in the Los Angeles area demonstrate this fact, such as the firm’s renovation of the Thaxton and Associates office and retail building into an award-winning mixed-use office and retail building. St. Thomas the Apostle School is another example of a lauded design that opened the building in new ways while keeping to a strict budget of a quarter of the cost of similar schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Elsewhere, houses like the Birch Residence, a 3,600-square-foot house in the design district of the city, have garnered both attention and celebration. The house was recently published in the book California Houses by notable LA architecture writer Michael Webb. Griffin says that the firm was honored to be featured in the book and to be able to show off how this house, as well as many other Griffin Enright house projects, was tailored to the client’s wishes and specifications.

Internationally, the firm has executed many exciting projects, particularly in the Asian market. Griffin Enright worked on the creation of Luxe Lake Villas in Chengdu, China, a project that involved master-planning the area, comprising 46 villa residences in six distinct styles. This project is just one example of how the Griffin Enright philosophy has become truly global in less than 30 years.

The signature touch of Griffin Enright can be seen in all its work and in every client relationship. For example, Griffin says the Birch Residence project was about creating a house that felt bigger than its square footage, as well as creating a garden oasis in the backyard. This created a combination of a private space and one with a great view of the city.

With this project—and all other homes created by Griffin Enright—special attention is paid to the spatial sequence a client will have moving through the house in all their daily activities. This is why, although each house is unique, they invariably bring a high resale value, because the design incorporates elements that are desirable to practically anyone in the market for a home. “Our objective is to create a project for our clients that transforms their life,” Griffin says.

She notes that the construction and architecture space has become more sophisticated in recent years, with the construction industry specifically finding more opportunities that allow for different ways of building things. While not necessarily more streamlined, one can achieve detailed effects more easily, despite costs seemingly increasing year by year. Griffin Enright is similarly interested in integrating new technologies into its practice; for instance, although artificial intelligence is still something of an unknown in terms of how it will affect architecture, Griffin believes that it will likely be of revolutionary scale. Already, the firm has been using augmented reality technology for elements like house walkthroughs, which help clients better understand and physically see the vision of a project and thereby commit to it with greater confidence.

The firm’s docket of work has yet to slow down and is bringing some exciting opportunities into the new year. The business already has a series of projects currently under construction, with at least 10 homes in the photography stage as well as a master-planned school project, St. Genevieve’s. “We always try to execute our projects such that they accomplish two or three things at a time,” Griffin says, and these include fulfilling social, aesthetic, and individual needs within a neighborhood.

In all its work, Griffin Enright Architects continues to redefine the intersection of architecture, technology, and client-focused design. With a foundation built on trust and the pursuit of transformative spaces, the firm’s journey underscores its commitment to excellence. As they embrace emerging technologies and push the boundaries of creative expression, Margaret Griffin and John Enright remain steadfast in their mission: to craft spaces that not only reflect their clients’ visions but also elevate their everyday lives.

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Based in the east coast Canadian city of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Fathom represents a collective of designers from a multitude of artistic and architectural disciplines, including but not limited to landscape, urban and graphic design, brand experts, writers, and planners. This collection of voices in the studio works together on unique and people-centric concepts, designs, and signage for buildings, trails, monuments, and more—many of which have since become staples in their respective neighborhoods.

Above all, the mission of Fathom as a design firm is to shape spaces, tell stories, and foster community identity in the built environment, as partner and director of landscape architecture Devin Segal describes on the company’s website. These ideals comprise what the studio refers to as innovative placemaking solutions, which go hand in hand with an internal philosophy to return design to a human-scale version of itself; meaning, reconnecting the act of designing structures and additions with a mind toward the people who use them and exist within them.

Fathom collaborates at all scales of project; as Segal puts it, “Our passion is public space and creating meaningful built environments that inform, engage, and inspire.”

Whether in its native province, across the country, or beyond, Fathom’s work has become instantly recognizable to the inhabitants that it keeps at the forefront of design. Some of its bigger projects to date include the site planning and landscape design for the NSCC Sydney Waterfront Campus in Cape Breton (a $160 million project), as well as streetscape projects like Main Street in Yarmouth and the ever-busy Argyle and Grafton Streetscape in Halifax. The latter of these street projects won an award in 2023 from the Atlantic Provinces Association of Landscape Architects (APALA) in the category of Large-Scale Landscapes Designed by a Landscape Architect, allowing Fathom to remain a hot topic in the architectural conversation in its eastern Canada home.

Outside of Nova Scotia, Fathom’s projects can be seen across the Atlantic provinces, from the design of The Lens: 2SLGBTQIA+ National Monument in Ottawa, Ontario to the International Lounge at the Gander, Newfoundland International Airport. Fathom has worked on wayfinding for Ottawa’s Algonquin College and for the North Shore Spirit Trail in Vancouver, British Columbia. It has even executed signage projects as far afield as the Yukon and Northwest Territories and a branding project in Nunavut, to name only a few.

More than even wayfinding or project design, Fathom is often called upon for its expertise in planning. Several of its notable projects include working with a city or municipality to plan usage of space, such as its work for the HRM (Halifax Regional Municipality) in designing a restoration plan for Point Pleasant Park post-Hurricane Juan (a bid it won in tandem with another Montreal firm), its involvement in the planning of the urban revitalization of Sydney’s downtown core, or its collaboration on the regional growth strategy for Labrador West.

Ultimately, the company’s work and the ideas of its collective are peppered throughout Canada in wildly varied locations and contexts, representing a considerable foothold that the firm’s ideas and successes have in the minds of millions of Canadians and visitors to the country.

Throughout all its many projects, Fathom makes sure to use a process centered on the collective discussion and thought that is the root of its very identity, “the hallmark of the team’s approach,” as the firm says. This type of collaborative focus has paid dividends both in terms of continued work and recognition for the team’s efforts. In 2023, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) awarded Fathom the Emerging Architectural Practice Award, an award recognizing promising new architectural firms and distinguishing Fathom as one of two Atlantic Canadian firms to receive the award.

This distinction pairs nicely with previous awards the firm has won for past projects, including the CIP (Canadian Institute of Planners) award for planning excellence for its work on a planning document review for the town of Wolfville, and winning an inaugural APALA award of excellence for its large-scale design work on Fort Needham in Halifax (both won in 2020). The RAIC says that Fathom “distinguished itself through high-quality design, research, and community involvement, and has the potential to become a major contributor to Canadian architecture.” Judging by its considerable portfolio, this team is clearly on its way there already.

The minds at Fathom are always on the go and are in demand for their contributions to the architecture industry nationally and internationally. Segal and fellow Partner/Director of Architecture and Interiors Chris Crawford both hosted panels at the CanU (Council for Canadian Urbanism) Forum in October of this year; elsewhere, Director of Experiential Graphic Design, Adam Fine, was a guest speaker at American Society of Landscape Architecture’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. The firm’s influence in its chosen fields continues to grow as its talent finds new ways to reach out and inform the design community of the values and approaches that make it successful.

Certainly, more projects are also in the pipeline for Fathom, including a development underway in Fredericton for the Under One Sky Friendship Centre (planned for completion in 2026), as well as taking the lead on Moncton’s Vision Lands Project, a development of over 16,000 residential units for one of New Brunswick’s biggest cities. A project in Digby, the Jordantown Acaciaville Conway Betterment Association (JACBA) Centre of Excellence, recently achieved net zero certification, meaning the building will have no harmful emissions.

To be sure, scale and audacity have seemingly never given Fathom Studio pause, as the team continues to take on projects of considerable scale and impact to bring its brand of teamwork and person-centered design to as much of its home and native land as possible.

The post Informing, Engaging, and Inspiring<p class="company">Fathom Studio</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

MetroStudio’s primary focus is adaptive reuse and historic restoration, particularly in urban environments that offer a rich architectural history. Rather than starting from scratch, MetroStudio works to repurpose older buildings, often transforming industrial or commercial spaces into new uses like multifamily housing, hospitality venues, or mixed-use facilities.

Operating in New Orleans, a city with over 300 years of architectural history, and with his New York City background, Gowland is well-versed in working with buildings that come with historical legacies. His clients recognize MetroStudio’s expertise in handling these complexities, which often come with significant economic benefits, as projects involving adaptive reuse and historic restoration offer certain tax incentives that aren’t typically available with new, ground-up construction. This makes them an attractive option for developers looking to maximize financial savings.

However, MetroStudio’s work is not limited to housing. The firm has also developed a strong focus on performing arts and music venues, a specialization that emerged naturally from past historic projects that leaned toward these types of spaces. This expertise has grown over time, shaping the firm’s portfolio in a unique way. This diverse project portfolio, combined with the firm’s focus on placemaking allows MetroStudio to help rejuvenate urban areas and bring communities together in spaces that foster interaction and culture.

When asked about the team behind MetroStudio, Gowland highlights the unique structure and collaborative environment that defines the company. Currently, the firm has a compact team of nine people, half of whom are licensed professionals. “We’re about 50 percent licensed, which is a high percentage for an architecture office, but we think it benefits our clients to have a team of extremely experienced licensed professionals,” he says. This team composition allows MetroStudio to bring a wealth of experience to every project, leveraging not only individual expertise but also the collective knowledge that each team member has developed through years of working on challenging adaptive reuse projects.

One of the key aspects of MetroStudio’s approach is its horizontal structure. Unlike larger, more corporate architectural firms where roles are siloed, MetroStudio encourages all team members to contribute to every aspect of a project regardless of their experience level. From documentation and engineering coordination to managing client and contractor relations, this collaborative approach is a core part of the firm’s culture. The lack of hierarchy fosters a collaborative environment where multiple viewpoints and expertise come together to solve complex problems.

By maintaining a small, integrated team, MetroStudio is able to operate with agility, allowing for rapid problem-solving and decision-making. This open environment not only accelerates the workflow but also ensures that all team members are invested in the success of every project.

While adaptive reuse might sound like a niche area of architecture, Gowland emphasizes that it requires a high level of innovation, particularly when it comes to quantifying risk and integrating new technologies into old structures. He explains that MetroStudio’s approach to innovation lies in its ability to blend real-world experience with cutting-edge digital tools. “Our firm combines expertise in archaic construction technology with best in practice digital tools and techniques to deliver successful outcomes on the most challenging projects,” he says.

For example, MetroStudio employs laser scanning and 3D modeling technology to create highly accurate representations of existing buildings. These digital models are then integrated with structural forensic analyses and other data to provide clients with a clear picture of the project’s requirements early in the design process. This enables the team to identify potential risks, both in terms of cost and schedule, well before they become major issues.

“We’re putting all of that information into that model early in the process so that we’re not waiting until the end of the effort to start to understand what the cost with the construction requirements is going to be,” says Gowland.

This forward-thinking approach to technology and risk management allows MetroStudio to take on projects that other firms might shy away from. By providing clients with a clear, data-driven understanding of what a project will entail, MetroStudio helps mitigate the uncertainty that often accompanies adaptive reuse projects, ensuring that both budget and schedule expectations are realistic from the outset.

Looking to the future, MetroStudio’s guiding principle is to “do today better than we did yesterday.” Rather than focusing on large, sweeping changes, the firm is dedicated to constant incremental improvement. This effort of continuous improvement and refinement of its processes really sets the framework for larger successes. It is this mindset that has allowed MetroStudio to grow from handling small residential projects to taking on large-scale urban redevelopment efforts.

As MetroStudio looks ahead, Gowland envisions the firm continuing to expand into urban areas with rich architectural histories, such as Chicago, New York, and San Antonio. The firm’s expertise in navigating the complexities of historic restoration and adaptive reuse makes it well-suited for these environments, where underutilized buildings are abundant.

While the company is committed to growth, Gowland emphasizes that the firm will continue to focus on placemaking above all else. “Our focus… is to create a place for people to interact, to live, to work, or to reinvigorate a part of a city that has been underutilized,” he shares. For MetroStudio, successful architecture is not about chasing the latest aesthetic trends; it’s about creating spaces that people gravitate toward, spaces that serve the community in meaningful ways.

Kenneth Gowland and MetroStudio are redefining what it means to be an architectural firm in the modern age. By focusing on adaptive reuse, historic restoration, and placemaking, the firm has established itself as a leader in revitalizing urban spaces. With a small, agile team and a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement, MetroStudio is well-positioned to continue its growth while maintaining its commitment to creating spaces that enrich communities.

Through its blend of real-world experience, innovative digital tools, and a deep understanding of risk management, MetroStudio offers clients something rare in architecture: certainty in uncertain projects. And as the firm expands into new markets, its emphasis on placemaking and adaptive reuse ensures that MetroStudio will continue to make a lasting impact on the cities it touches.

The post Revitalizing the Past: Transforming Historic Spaces into Modern Marvels<p class="company">MetroStudio</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Based in the stunning Monterey Bay area of California, the company has no shortage of inspiration. “The surroundings, the nature, [there is] so much to respond to,” he says, “and our architecture really ties that together.”

This philosophy leads to projects that utilize “materials and colors that are inspired by the ocean, the forest,” to create an “immersive experience between the built environment and the natural environment.”

Fuse, a full-service commercial and residential architecture and construction firm, delivers a wide range of projects. “We like challenging projects, where people are seeking our style and they want that lifestyle of indoor-outdoor living,” Partner and Architect Dan Townsend says. The company handles everything from coastal and mountain homes to restaurants and business headquarters. “We’re very versatile,” he says. “We take on all kinds of projects. It’s more about the design challenge; if we have a similar vision, similar goals, it’s usually a good fit for us.”

Townsend and Gomez are both licensed architects with backgrounds in high-end commercial and residential projects. Their passion for delivering their vision to the client led them to add construction services to the firm in 2009. The problem was that their designs were not always being carried through on-site, and the core focus would be lost. If “we’re not on-site often enough, things get missed; things get changed or misinterpreted or whatnot,” Gomez explains.

“We weren’t big fans of that,” he adds. “It really took away from some of the design that we had put into it, a lot of the thought and the care.” After working closely with a client for a year or more, achieving the agreed-upon design is paramount.

Eventually, the partners decided they had had enough. The solution was clear, albeit bold. “We decided to become contractors,” he says. “We knew if we were in charge, that we would have the design intent, the budget, everything, because we were deeply ingrained in it. Then we knew we would make the right call, whether it be for detailing purposes, to create the design concept, [or to stay] within the budget and the schedule. We had more control over all of that,” he shares.

“We grew from there,” Gomez says. “One of the big key factors is that we are what we call architect-led construction. Whereas typically, if a contractor is in charge and that’s their training from the beginning, and they bring on a designer, that’s contractor-led design and construction. We feel it’s a little bit different, because we are licensed architects that have a vision, that have a thing that we want to carry through, and now we’re making sure that is the priority.”

The company does not stop there. “We not only do architecture and construction; we also have an interiors team that helps select all the hardware, furniture, finishes, fixtures,” he says. “We have a landscape team that designs the exterior landscaping, mainly because we want our designs to be tied in with the nature and the environment. And it only makes sense, if you’re doing that indoor-outdoor living, that the landscaping also ties in with architecture.”

The firm’s projects always include a sustainability focus that can be traced back to Townsend’s and Gomez’s education at the University of Arizona at Tucson. The curriculum dealt with the lack of resources in the desert and promoting sustainable practices.

“A lot of our training and our background is based on what we call passive sustainable design, meaning you take advantage of everything you have: sunlight, time of year, the winds, water storage,” Gomez explains. “So even though we introduce active systems into our designs, we make sure that they’re optimized for all the passive advantages of a site and the location.”

This means that, when launching a project, the company’s initial site analysis “takes into consideration how we’re going to handle the water, how we’re going to handle the sun at different times of the year, and how we’re going to handle the winds and whatnot. We’re very keen on maximizing all the passive solar potential and enhancing the design, and then we supplement it with active systems.”

Materials are also carefully considered in the design of every project. “We try to use a lot of locally manufactured products, because that’s a big source of sustainability,” Gomez says. “We like to reuse a lot of trees from the site.” This often includes cypress or redwood. “If any tree has to be removed or it has fallen on the properties, we like to use those for furnishings, finishes—in any aspect we can.”

For instance, Fuse is currently using redwood for a house on a site that suffered a fire. “We harvested all the wood and had it milled down and are using it for the finished ceilings, the structural framing where allowable. So, we really try to reuse whatever is available on-site or in the area.”

In another notable project, the team is rebuilding a girls’ camp that was destroyed in the CZU wildfires in 2020. “All the buildings were lost except for two buildings,” says Townsend. “We had designed and built two bathroom/shower buildings on the girls’ camp property in 2010, and it turns out that, after the fire, those are the only two buildings that were still standing. They were still functioning. The solar panels were still working. There was still toilet paper on the toilet paper holders, where every other building on the property burned down to the ground. And this property is in the dead center of the fire. In fact, some of the lightning strikes that caused the fire happened on this property. So, the entire 1,000 acres was scorched. We went out three weeks after the fire happened, when the ground was still on fire and smoldering, and we saw our buildings were still standing there, the lights were still on. So, the owners of the girls’ camp hired us to rebuild the whole camp.”

Understandably, the owners have requested that Fuse rebuild using the same materials and methods used on those surviving structures. At the moment, the company is working on a large amphitheater and a new dining hall “that will all be sealed, all fireproof,” Townsend says. “So, these buildings will never burn down again.”

To be sure, the future looks promising. “We’re continuing to grow,” Gomez says, and the team is monitoring that growth carefully. “Obviously we like to grow smart—what we can manage, what we can handle,” he adds. “We are looking at expanding our office into the Monterey Carmel area because we’re doing a lot of work in that area.” Armed with a strong vision and the capacity to oversee and execute every design, Fuse is sure to continue its success, wherever it expands.

The post Architect-Led Construction<p class="company">Fuse Architects + Builders</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Named as one of the top 40 leading international design firms of the 21^st century for two years running by World Architecture News, Arno Matis Architecture (AMA) has more than 29 years of experience in mid-to-large-scale rezoning and development, specializing in densifying coastal communities with contemporary spaces that relate to nature. The company aims to provide responsive, sustainable design solutions that address the present while embracing a timelessness in their aesthetic.

For Matis, spending considerable time and effort on ensuring projects fit into their overall context is vital.

“From sitting on the site to considering the perspective of people walking around the edges—how the scale of the buildings are, how they feel, how approachable the buildings are, and how the buildings melt into the landscape—it’s all part of the process,” he says. “We work a lot on the integration of landscape into the building, so they fit nicely and almost feel like they belong, in a way.”

Over the years, Arno Matis has created award-winning architectural projects both domestically and abroad, and has actively created and overseen many award-winning landmark buildings, such as the Sunset Community Centre in Vancouver and Arena Stage in Washington, while serving as a Senior Director of Bing Thom Architects (BTA). Matis also oversaw Hotel Georgia’s first rezoning in accordance with Vancouver’s Tall Building Policy while working for BTA.

Operating under the maxim of design being the creative and proactive process of utilizing materials and resources to the fullest extent possible for the benefit of people, AMA’s specialty is utilizing urban design to create architecture that increases density, efficiency, sustainability, and livability while maximizing value. The company also uses the most potent tools available to aid the design process, from the simplest hand sketch to the most complex BIM, AR/VR, and AI software combined with 3D printing.

“I’ve had some great mentors,” says Matis of Bing Thom who worked for Arthur Erickson, a famous West Coast modern architect. “Bing took that West Coast modern tradition, and we developed it in the direction that he took it in his time. We are aspiring to carry on in that tradition.”

Starting at four or five people, AMA grew to about 10 before 2009 when the “world imploded,” says Matis. “I think everyone remembers when everything came to a grinding halt. Within a period of several weeks, almost every project we had went on full hold and we had to get creative about how to survive through a pretty bad recession.”

As a result, Matis realized it was a good time to start building. “We started a design and construction company, did three homes, and received lot of press for one of them, which got quite a bit of exposure,” he explains. “As we came out of the recession, the phone started ringing again for larger projects, and we had to make a decision—whether that was putting more time into consulting or continuing with the construction side.”

Ultimately, Matis decided to drop construction in favour of scaling up the design side of the business. Since then, work has been primarily based in B.C.’s Lower Mainland in a number of municipalities including Richmond, Vancouver, and Coquitlam with inquiries for Surrey. Now the company is also looking at potentially doing some work in Washington, Texas, and California.

“We’ve expanded outward from Vancouver, but Vancouver is still our home. That’s where our head office is, and still where we do a lot of our work.”

Notable projects are found in the mid-rise format, with the company cutting its teeth on that middle ground. “When you get into a mid-rise-scale project, it has all of the complexity of a tall building with consulting, structural, and mechanical issues being very similar on a mid-rise building,” Matis says. “A lot of smaller firms probably wouldn’t be able to do that, and bigger firms struggle to wrap their head around whether it’s worth going after that scale of work or not. But we ended up landing in that middle-scale type of project, and because there wasn’t a lot of it around, we started to experiment a bit more with possibilities.”

This includes 2211 Cambie Street in Vancouver, a “very difficult and challenging site” to try to shoehorn a mid-rise project into. “It was highly visible and got a lot of attention early on, and helped launch us,” says Matis. “It probably represents a lot of our thinking around the possibility of mid-scale projects to add excitement and interest to a city without having to be large-scale and dominating on the skyline.”

Another notable project, Aperture, is a bigger but still mid-rise project in a residential suburban area, where the company was tasked with fitting higher density into a largely single-family neighbourhood, embracing the idea of ‘gentle density.’

“There can be a lot of pushback from neighbourhoods about adding this extra density, but cities like Vancouver wanted to do it because these areas where these projects needed to be built were near transit,” shares Matis.

These mid-rise projects were often built close to rapid transit station sites or future station sites, he adds. Even though they were high-density, they were interesting buildings and of high quality, with landscaping and a mindful approach to how the buildings fit; thus folks in the neighbourhood didn’t push back.

“We typically encountered little to no resistance,” says Matis. “Because we had so much success doing these types of projects, we got many more of them. We still do a lot of them, but we’ve since moved on while using the same kind of approach we picked up and learned there.”

Along with design and innovation, AMA prioritizes public service and volunteerism, which was impressed upon Matis by his former boss and mentor Bing Thom. “He was always serving on boards and committees and volunteering his time. When I started my firm, I immediately volunteered for the City of Vancouver Planning Commission, which I sat on for a few years, and then became board member on the Urban Design Panel, where I sat for quite a few years,” says Matis. “That turned to be quite invaluable, because I not only learned a lot about how the planning departments form policy, but I got to know a lot of the planners, which was especially valuable when we started to do a lot of rezoning projects.”

With this volunteer work, Matis developed a deep understanding of the rezoning and permitting process. “We really pay attention to the details of policy and try to do our best to incorporate the wishes of the public, councillors, and planning departments when we’re going through with our application,” Matis says. “I find that added attention to detail can really make a dramatic difference in the reception of a project.”

AMA projects typically pass through public hearings with unanimous decisions, says Matis. “There’s nothing worse than fighting your way through an approvals process where you know you’re getting through by the skin of your teeth,” he adds. “You get through, but you’ve now got a neighbourhood where, even before a shovel hits the ground, they’re already upset about this project that’s coming. And when it’s completed, it’s the sum of all fears.”

The project is then sitting there for the next 50 years, and everyone needs to look at it and drive past it, he says.

“Bing always used to say, he never wants to do buildings where he didn’t feel proud driving past that building years later or [felt the need] to avoid that particular street in the city because the building turning out so badly. I never want to have to drive down a street where I have a project I worked on that I’ve been ashamed of; I always want to be proud to drive by, and I want the neighbourhood to be proud of those buildings as well. That’s the approach we’ve taken, and I think it’s served us well.”

Looking ahead, AMA is interested in expanding across Canada and the United States, as well as remaining open to new opportunities. “Because we’re doing larger projects these days, it makes sense to look at projects in other areas,” says Matis. “We’re also doing a considerable amount of R&D in the use of technology in not only design, but construction and the management of those projects.”

This includes some “pretty interesting, cutting-edge” research and development in applying technology specifically to improving the affordability of housing. “That’s an interesting area where we’re applying a lot of our energy and effort.”

Until then, AMA and Matis are committed to creating beautiful and unique designs that work organically in every locale while exceeding clients’ expectations.

The post Designing Buildings that Belong<p class="company">Arno Matis Architecture</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

In its report Housing shortages in Canada: Updating how much housing we need by 2030, the CMHC details the urgency, saying that 3.5 million additional housing units are needed by 2030. And while all provinces and territories are feeling the crunch, more housing is needed in the country’s most densely populated provinces like Ontario (with a population fast approaching 16 million), Quebec (around 9,100,000), British Columbia (over 5.6 million), and Alberta (4.1 million).

The blame game
Who is to blame for Canada getting to the housing breaking point? Some point the finger at “greedy” banks and high interest rates. Others fault wealthy foreign buyers, who for years gobbled up everything from condos to mansions in British Columbia and other provinces, which continued until Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland announced the extension of the federal government’s existing ban on foreign ownership by another two years back in February. Others are critical of the hundreds of thousands of foreign students coming to Canada, some eyeing it as a pathway to permanent resident status. And some lay the blame squarely at the feet of developers.

Shelving the blame for a moment, what is the solution? Some have proposed modular housing and units made from shipping containers, while others say building up and creating density along existing roads and transit lines is the answer.

Observations from an architect
Over the past 30 years, architect Graham Smith has seen and heard it all regarding the housing crisis. Managing Principal at Toronto-based Altius Architecture Inc., Smith and his team have created over 650 individual projects, all of them boutique, and definitely at the upper end of the market. These include everything from full-blown houses to kitchen renovations.

The company has served as contractor; BCIN (Building Code Identification Number, a unique ID code required in Ontario) qualified designer; architect; construction manager, supervising the building process; and many other roles. Projects include modular housing, prefab housing, steel, engineered lumber—practically every single form of housing there is.

“I sit here and say, we are the last industry that produces this boutique, ‘have it your way’ type of service. We are the haute couture of architecture,” says Smith from the firm’s Queen Street West office. “We have clients who come in, and we say, ‘we will do whatever you want, and it will be new and different.’ And you sit there and say, ‘What industry on the planet still does that? It’s insane!’” He compares this situation to manufacturers making custom cars years ago, something that doesn’t happen anymore.

Financial constraints
Despite the lack of affordable housing, many still hold onto the dream of homeownership in Canada. Prices, however, remain a major roadblock. Even with a slight recent drop, the average selling price of a home in Canada is $717,800. And that is just the average. The price in Ontario is $817,915, and well over a million dollars in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

“Clearly, the average Canadian cannot afford to purchase the average Canadian house,” says Smith, adding that monthly mortgage payments of thousands of dollars—together with meeting the rising costs of food, clothing, education, and savings—are not only prohibitive but impossible for many families to meet even with multiple incomes. After all these bills plus day-to-day expenses, few have much left over.

“Once you remove housing costs from the average Ontarian’s bank account, the average family has somewhere between $10,000 and $32,000 left for all other expenses,” Smith says. “You’ve got the CMHC touting all their programs for affordable housing, but they haven’t looked at the basic facts: who can build it? It’s not like developers can magically reduce the cost of housing.”

Having done all types of housing for 15 years, his conclusion is that all are costly to build, including prefab.

Another issue, says Smith, is the question of what, exactly, constitutes affordable housing. According to the CMHC, it is housing that costs less than 30 percent of a household’s before-tax income.

In real-world terms, this is unrealistic. Last year, the average Canadian family had a combined income of $109,000 pre-tax and paid $47,000 in taxes. For housing to be ‘affordable,’ the average Canadian family should be spending no more than $32,700 a year on housing. However, major cities like Vancouver and Toronto often demand much higher rents.

“In our most populated cities, the average Canadian cannot afford to live, plain and simple,” says Smith, “and that’s certainly what we are seeing in the marketplace. The CMHC invested in social equality and governance, when all people care about is having a roof over their heads.”

Instead of well-intended but ineffectual grants, programs, and drop-in-the-bucket, feel-good initiatives that barely scratch the surface of the housing crisis, there’s a simple solution, says Smith: stop taxing Canadians so highly. Marginal tax rates are extremely high, he says, and there is an affordability problem because Canadians simply don’t have enough money left at the end of the month for their housing. “Simultaneously, you have the Canadian government overtaxing Canadian households; they are also overtaxing the people who build houses. And this whole idea that there’s a non-profit and NGO group capable of supplying housing to Canadians is laughable. Instead of someone building 10 houses, they really should be building 10,000.”

As a housing industry veteran, Smith says Canadians need to get past the idea that builders are bad people driven by profit. No one is in business with the goal of losing money, and many ignore the high cost of construction, including material prices, skilled trades, and permit fees. Every time municipalities revise building codes, the cost of housing increases.

According to Smith, cash-starved municipalities Canada-wide need to confront their own issues—including staffing and expenses—and become smaller, more efficient, and more accountable. In his own Toronto experience, inspections and permitting take months, and thousands of dollars are paid for projects to go before the Committee of Adjustment. “Civil servants act like a police force, making lives as difficult as possible,” he says. “They’ve lost touch with the idea of what a civil servant is.”

Even with a growing population and enormous demand for housing, Canada’s housing starts are going down. People are clamouring for housing, but developers aren’t building, which calls for a much closer look at the reasons why.

One reason, says Smith, is the changes constantly being made to the Ontario Building Code. While some are well-intentioned, they end up costing Smith’s clients more money. One example is insulation. R14 on 2” x 4” walls became R24 on 2” x 6” walls, with continuous insulation on the outside. “It’s saving energy, but costs way more for the average household than it saves,” he says.

Plain and simple, there is a need to find ways to reduce the cost of housing. The issue is that this won’t happen with what developers are doing now: building generic tract home subdivisions and soaring towers. Developers can be painfully slow to innovate; in the past 30 years, the biggest change to subdivision homes was the addition of the family room. Many want this additional room, yet few take advantage of it, creating additional space that remains largely unused.

Runaway infrastructure
One of the most expensive aspects of construction today is infrastructure. In new subdivisions, everything must be created from scratch, including parks, waterlines, sewers, sidewalks, and roads. Development fees charged by municipalities have skyrocketed tenfold in some cases, with developers now paying $150,000 to $200,000 per unit on development charges. Add in provincial land transfer taxes, and another four percent land transfer tax in Toronto on top of development charges, building fees, committee of adjustment fees, carrying costs, connection fees to existing waterlines, and more, and these costs are passed on to buyers.

“It’s gotten to where developers have reached the breaking point where they can’t do it anymore because of their costs,” says Smith. “The Carbon Tax doesn’t help either, because it’s a tax on everything. So you have the government saying, ‘We need housing,’ and the private sector, which builds all the housing, saying, ‘We can’t do it.’ So what’s going to happen?”

Missing the chance
In Toronto, changes were made to allow multiplex housing city-wide. According to the city, a multiplex is “a residential building with two, three, or four units—also called a duplex, triplex, or fourplex, as defined by the Zoning By-Law. To qualify as a duplex, triplex, or fourplex, at least one dwelling unit must be entirely or partially above another.” Builders can now create four units in the footprint of one, in any neighbourhood, without having to rezone, effectively creating an opportunity to take 826,000 individual properties and turn them into two or three million properties if done correctly.

“It’s an enormous opportunity to densify Toronto neighbourhoods, and a lot of Toronto neighbourhoods could use densification,” says Smith. “And that makes it cheaper for government to service those people because they are on existing roads, sidewalks, and infrastructure.”

Although this opportunity exists, Smith says that developers, accustomed to building hundreds of homes on one tract of land, are reluctant to build disparate houses—one on this block, two on another block.

“Big developers don’t know how to do it; they know how to marshal large developments. Mom-and-pop small-time developers can’t do it either, because they can’t get financing. And while they know how to build, they don’t know how to navigate zoning, permitting, and how to use housing once they’ve got it. Is the house owned by the landlord? Is he renting it out? Then he expects to make a profit from it. If the cost of housing is prohibitive in the first place, how could they possibly rent out at the average Canadian rent to the average Canadian family? The answer is, they can’t.”

Breaking the impasse
With an estimated population of almost 42 million and growing, Canada is at an impasse. What the country needs, says Smith, is a completely new type of housing, a disruptor. There needs to be a way to reduce taxes and building costs and create an ownership model that works and is accessible. Homeownership must also allow people to live their entire lives in the neighbourhood, with housing options that address their needs from early adulthood until death. This currently doesn’t exist.

“We have this amazing opportunity in front of us, but it is going to take an enormous amount of research, development, product development, and effort to literally redefine what a house is and figure out how to mass-produce it within the cities where we already have achieved density—with existing services, schools, fire departments, police, and all that,” says Smith.

“Is anybody going to be able to do it? Probably not, because it’s an opportunity I don’t think anybody is going to figure out how to seize. So we’re just going to continue on our merry way, business as usual, because we have developers who know how to build, but… they don’t like change.” The talent exists, but there need to be incentives for the talent to change things.

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