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Interpreting the Dream
Over a quarter-century, Centerbrook Architects' guiding
philosophy has been: less is Moore
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Business New Haven
12/4/1995
By: BNH
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Howard Roark, the rugged individualist architect of The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand's overwrought novel of ideals, would rather detonate than switch.
That my-way-or-the-highway attitude about architectural design finds no welcome home at Centerbrook Architects & Planners, a firm nationally known for both its taste and its participatory design style.
Centerbrook began its life 25 years ago as a laboratory for applying the philosophy of Charles W. Moore, an internationally renowned architect and teacher and at the time dean of Yale University's School of Architecture.
“Charles was a very inclusive architect,” recalls William H. Grover, president of Centerbrook who, along with three of his four partners, was a student of Moore a generation ago. “He was a great filter of ideas, getting them from clients, students and co-workers.”
Moore's design approach, which infused his impressed and impressionable students, was “situation architecture,” Explains Grover: “That means the right building for the right place. You see, the character of a building must fit the surroundings and the people who will occupy it.”
Such integration remains the hallmark of Centerbrook 25 years later, surviving the firm's relocation from New Haven to the Connecticut River village of Essex, the firm's growth, Moore's departure 11 years ago, and even Moore's sudden death in December 1993.
Putting its situational philosophy into practice, Centerbrook Architects is nestled in a renovated 1870s auger bit factory along the banks of the Falls River in the Centerbrook section of Essex.
Instead of hardware, however, this factory produces dreams.
“Every client has a dream,” Grover explains. “It is the architect's responsibility to interpret that dream. That's a positive start to the design process. So it ought to be enjoyable.”
It's profitable, rewarding and ego-gratifying, too.
Known primarily for its collegiate work, Centerbrook is currently working on 39 institutional projects and 25 single-family homes with a total construction cost of $500 million.
It is campus architect for nearby Quinnipiac College, Dartmouth College, Amherst College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, on Long Island. The firm's work for these institutions include dormitories, student centers, libraries and labs.
“The nature of society is changing,” Grover says. “And colleges have to respond.”
For Quinnipiac's residence hall village, Centerbrook partner Jefferson B. Riley and his project team designed 11 residence buildings to house 336 students in six-person suites, creating a semblance of a neighborhood rather than the long, hotel-like corridors of traditional dorms.
“Students now want to live in an apartment and cook there,” Grover notes. The firm thus balances students' needs for both privacy and community.
Centerbrook involved Quinnipiac students and college officials in design discussions, asking the students, especially, to describe their ideal residence hall quarters.
This design “workshop” approach, which solicits input and responds to it with alteration of designs, runs counter to the stereotype of the Roarkian architect who puts purity before client satisfaction.
To help sell an earlier dormitory design to a skeptical board of trustees, Centerbrook built a mock suite on its grounds, invited student volunteers to live in it over a weekend, and then brought in trustees to hear the students' resoundingly positive housing experiences.
The firm also is architect for the University of Connecticut's new chemistry building, Cheshire Academy's science and technology building, and prototype buildings for all Connecticut state parks.
Centerbrook is as well designer of several public facilities, including the Garde Arts Center in New London, various museums and office buildings and renovations, including Building 4 at Science Park.
About one-fifth of the firm's construction costs and fees come from designing individual homes, at a move-in cost of $150,000 to $7 million.
“Any home project has the possibility of being something wonderful,” Grover explains, “since you're dealing with people's needs and dreams.”
This dream factory banks on positive client experiences, since 80 percent of Centerbrook's business stems from repeat clients.
That high client retention has become a competitive edge for Centerbrook, especially in a regional economy that remains sluggish. “Competition is greater now,” than in recent years, Grover says. “Our saving grace is that we have so many long-term clients.
“Our philosophy is to do a good job and keep our clients happy,” he adds. “Our goal is to find clients who will be doing continuing work, like universities. Then we give them the best possible design and services, so they won't talk to anybody else.”
In the foreword of an American Institute of Architects book about Centerbrook, James D. Watson, director of Cold Springs Laboratory and a long-term Centerbrook client, says: “Centerbrook treats their clients with great respect. If we do not like some aspect of a plan, they are always willing to consider changes and actually make them! At no time have they used their positions as experts to imply that we don't know what we want.”
The work is rewarding to the firm's five partners, who operate separate practices from Centerbrook's offices. Besides Grover and Riley, partners include Robert L. Harper, Mark Simon and Chad Floyd.
Each partner builds an ad hoc project team composed of associates and technicians, and each partner is responsible for hustling new commissions to keep the staff busy.
The ascension of computers as an essential business tool has made the act of architectural design a more fluid and expansive process, Grover says.
“The computer is only a glorified straight edge and pencil. It doesn't invent anything for you. But it does take the drudgery out of a job, which makes the work much more interesting. It gives us the ability to look at a lot of different design options.”
Centerbrook's designs and resulting buildings are objects embodying both beauty and utility. Enough so that the firm has captured more than 140 awards for design excellence, including three honor awards bestowed by the AIA. And recently the firm took four of eight awards in the Connecticut chapter of the AIA's 33rd annual design competition.
“Awards are good for the ego,” Grover notes. “And they're good advertising. They help make the phones ring at Centerbrook.
And, given Centerbrook's service-first philosophy, once potential clients come in the door, they tend to stay for quite a spell.
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