Transcription of Community Architects #231
Lisa: My next guest is an individual who should be well-known to readers of Maine Magazine, Maine Home and Design. This is Caleb Johnson who is a Maine licensed architect. He and his wife Dana are very well connected in the Southern Maine Community and their 3 children. It’s quite fun to be able to have Caleb in here to talk about some of the work that he’s been doing and his connections to Southern Maine and probably Maine at large. Thanks for being here.
Caleb: I would say so. Absolutely. Pleasure to be here.
Lisa: Caleb, I want to go back a little bit and talk about why you went in to architecture in the first place?
Caleb: Sure. I think it’s an interesting discussion and for me my path to architecture was through art. I began my life really quite early in grade school, very interested in art and very interested in drawing. I pursued it pretty passionately actually in grade school and through high school. It came to a point where I was highly encouraged by my parents to go into fine arts and was given the support, was told they would support me through college doing it but it came to a point where I realized that I wanted something maybe a little bit more practical where I could be involved in things that had more of a daily need and purpose and what I thought at the time, a larger impact on communities.
It may be changed my view there a little bit but at times I’ve actually said to friends that I went out of art and went into architecture. That was my path as a love of art and never looked back once I chose my junior year in architecture or my junior year in high school to go into architecture. I think it was a great decision.
Lisa: What type of art are you fond of?
Caleb: I started with a real passion for impressionism and then that morphed into many other types of art that I became passionate about but it was always centered around landscape painting. In college, I studied with a portrait painter the entire time I was doing architecture for no credits. I just wanted to do it. I always found it important in any creative endeavor. Ideas start in the mind and eventually you need to communicate those to somebody else.
In the visual arts which architecture is closely aligned with and the visual arts, the easiest way to communicate an idea is often through a picture. The ability to go quickly from an idea in your mind to a picture gives you the ability to convey your ideas to others accurately. That’s been a huge part of my entire career. I’ve kept that up through college and keep it up to this day. I just restarted down at Engine in Biddeford, some figure drawing classes or sessions that has been a lot of fun. Art definitely remains a major part of my career.
Lisa: Have you been able to incorporate your love of art, and drawings, and painting into the work that you do with architectural design?
Caleb: Absolutely. I mean, I draw every day. There was not a day that I don’t draw because once again, it’s the communication of ideas that are visual. At some point, it’s going to pass through a pencil or a computer but for me I can get an idea across very quickly by just putting pencil to paper where if I attempt that with a computer, you might wait half an hour before I showed you what I could show you in 30 seconds of what an idea is in my head.
Everyday ideas from up here on to a piece of paper so that you and I can talk about that idea and bat it back and forth and see what you think of it. Every day art is a part of my life.
Lisa: Different people have different ways of communicating. If you were working with a client and perhaps building a home or maybe even working on something that’s larger. I know that you’re working in Biddeford on some pretty big projects. How do you communicate with other people who maybe aren’t as visual? Maybe their way of communicating is more just spoken word. Maybe they’re more kinesthetic. Maybe they need to touch things. How do you deal with that?
Caleb: It’s a really good question because in the end if I’m working on a project for a municipality or I’m working on a project for a private residence, in the end, I have to somehow connect with you and get you to trust that the ideas that I’m putting forward meet your needs and hopefully go much beyond meeting your needs and get in to the realm of inspiring you or changing what you think was possible.
You’re right. I definitely run into clients. I could show them drawings all day and they won’t get it. In those situations, it could be 3 dimensional modeling in a computer, it could be 3 dimensional modeling right in front on a table. Often, the quickest route is let me show you a bunch of pictures that are more like vignettes that get across an emotion. People can connect with that. You show me for instance a picture of a living room that you really love.
There might be absolutely nothing about the architecture of that picture that you like. It might be in some style that you would never build for yourself but you might really connect with the emotional impact of that picture. I can learn something from that. I can translate that into the conversations you told me where you’re looking for this but you show me a picture that’s at odds.
I think photographs is another great way of communicating but also you really can … If you can be articulate in the way you talk and you run into somebody that just is not following you in the visual languages, you can earn somebody’s trust by saying I understand you. I’m listening to you in the way that you’re engaging with them and they’ll build a trust in you.
Certainly our best projects evolve around clients who trust us and engage with us in conversations about ideas because in the end, that’s what architecture for me is about. That can happen just by a conversation as well as batting back and forth drawings.
Lisa: I know that you and your wife, Dana are very interested in health. Dana is a health coach. From what I understand, from your business partner, Shannon, there’s a lot of really interesting things going on even in your office. You’re really trying to get people to live their lives in a full and healthy way. Why is that?
Caleb: As far as I understand it right, we have one life to live. It’s either get on with it or don’t. I’m thinking in the scheme of things, working takes up a pretty good chunk of our lives. For me I love what I do and I’m not going to do it if I don’t. I love my freedom and I don’t like to be stuck in a box and told when to go and come. I think there is the reality of running a business and a reality of deadlines and money that are ever present.
To the ability that we have to allow the people we work with freedom to make choices about their daily lives, we certainly do that. One of the biggest things I think we offer which a lot of businesses are doing these days is we offer flex time. It’s like come and go with reason as you please, make sure that you can collaborate with your peers and collaborate with me and other people. Come and go as you please and that gives people, I think, in our office just the feeling of you’re not a cog in a wheel, you’re part of an overall conversation, you’re part of an overall effort to be a part of the community and to be a part of the architectural community and to chart your own course.
I think that’s one of the biggest things that we do is do our best to offer people their freedom and autonomy and not feel like a cog. Naturally, I think the people in Maine, a lot of people in our office, they love exercise, they love being outside, that’s why they’re here. We do our best not to get in the way of that and do our best to encourage it.
Lisa: Why has Maine become such an important part of your life? Why were you drawn to Maine and why do you continue to be here?
Caleb: It’s an interesting question because I see that here in Maine, there’s just a lot of people that I feel a pretty close kinship with, similar minds, similar ideas about life. I hate to use the word brand but Maine just has such a strong brand to it. It’s about the outdoors. It’s about beautiful small towns. It’s about the coast. It’s about New England and I love all of those things.
I think the people who really stay around here love those things as well. That’s what brought my wife and I here in 2000. We enjoy all of that every week, every day. I love to travel. I go to other places and then I’m very happy to come back to Maine every time. I’m not drawn away from Maine by any other location nationally or internationally.
Before I came to Maine, I was itching for a place to settle down because I was never in one place longer than 5 years and during my whole life did a lot of travel internationally and around the country. When you test out all the different options then you land on one, then you feel confident that you made a good choice and I feel very confident about that. My wife and I both do.
Lisa: Where are you originally from?
Caleb: That’s a hard question, but I’ve lived everywhere from North Dakota to New York City, rural New Hampshire. Pennsylvania Chicago on and on and on. Like I said, I’m pretty confident that I love hearing we’re not going anywhere.
Lisa: One of the reasons that I know you a little bit better than many of the people that we work with at the magazines is that you and Dana and Shannon and her husband, Galen, you are out in the community. You are at the Kennebunkport Festival. I think you were at Brews and Tunes last summer with your kids and you’re at the Danforth Inn on New Year’s Eve.
I can’t turn around without you being there, you and your group. You’re so engaged. I mean, all of you. It’s just such a nice feeling that you want to be interacting. That’s not necessarily the norm for people who work in the architecture field.
Caleb: There’s a couple of things going on there. We love to be out but I wouldn’t say I was always that way. Certainly, I remember one of my closest friends who’s a photographer that’s well-known in Maine, Trentville. My first year in high school at Virginia, all of his friends encouraged him to go befriend me and get me out of my dorm room because I was just in there drawing all day. Naturally probably more of an introvert.
To practice my craft which, a well practiced craft can delve into art, you can’t be practicing architecture and construction and not be known and not be in a community. What that will do is mean you’re practicing it on your own computer and on your own drawing pad and doing something else during the day. I’ve come to really love being a part of a community even though I started that practice because I need to get out. I need the network. I need to know people if I’m going to do what I do.
That though has had a real impact on my life because where maybe originally as I made my way through high school and college, a handful of friends, a handful of acquaintances would do. Now, I need an entire state in order to support the organization which we’re building. I think we’re close to 20 employees now.
All of the expenses that go along with it. If I make it a practice to stay in my office and think and draw and do all of that and not get out, then we will quickly be running out of work. The net result of that I think is an interesting discussion because knowing people, interacting with people, it absolutely amazes me how social humans are.
I mean, there’s, what is it, close to 7 billion or just over 7 billion of us. We’re everywhere. I’m looking at a hawk on a highway the other day and I’m thinking, “Man, what is it, maybe 10,000 of those in this state and there’s a million of us?” I mean, it’s a good thing we’re also social. The more I get out, the more I enjoy friends and community, the more fun I had doing it. The more my life is enriched by other ideas, by the warmth of other people.
If you’re going to be out in all of the communities and getting to know people and just having a good time you can’t be that negative and down on life. If you are negative and down on life, you’re not going out. You’re going to stay in and think about your own problems. It’s really had an effect on me over the past really 13 years. I started my own business in 2003 and prior to that you wouldn’t have seen me anywhere. Since then, we get out quite a bit as you’ve mentioned and it’s had a really profound effect on my life just getting to know other people, listening to them, taking in their ideas and making that part of my overall story and drive, so transformative.
Lisa: It’s interesting because I think you’re identifying something that many artists struggle with that if you’re a musician like our audio producer, Spencer Albee or if you’re a landscape artist like Jamie Deyman who came in a few weeks ago, if you’re a writer like Tess Gerritsen who we interviewed in the fall, you have both things. You have both aspects, sometimes equally strong in your personality need that quiet time. You need that introspection but you also need that connection. You need it not only to inform your craft but also to build business.
Caleb: Correct.
Lisa: It’s a dichotomy.
Caleb: I wouldn’t see it so much if you wanted to really get into it. I wouldn’t see it so much as a dichotomy as so much as really that one informs the other and the one can’t do without the other because an artist alone eventually is going to lose touch with the things that are really important to humanity. There might be some artists out there who would say my art isn’t about that. My art is about my solitary pursuits and thoughts.
I personally am not interested in that art. I’m interested in art that can have an effect on all of us. You got to be out there. You got to know what’s going on. You got to travel. You got to know people otherwise your ideas are going to be stale. I have certainly found that just really being part of the community enhances the ideas and enhances the craft and then once that … Once you have a command of that craft, you can take that craft and do unexpected things with it which starts to get into the world of art.
It’s a very interesting conversation, but like I said, it’s a really fascinating discussion to me about just how social humans are. That definitely has a lot to do with architecture because architecture holds people together by the nature of what it is and the way you design a building has large effect on the way people interact with each other. It’s worth thinking about.
One of my heroes Steve Jobs who’s had a huge effect on really worldwide, had an massive effect on the way office buildings are designed and they way he insisted that his headquarters be built was to encourage accidental collaboration between everybody so that you would cross paths all the time and cross fertilized ideas which is what we were talking about a minute ago. That’s just really essential.
If you can come up with original ideas that have an effect on people, much better to start off where the rest of humanity left off and so in order to do that and then move the envelop one little step farther in your career, you really got to just be out there, talk to people, understand it. Look at a lot of books, do a lot of travelling.
Lisa: As you’ve moved from a smaller to a larger organization what you said 20 employees?
Caleb: Roughly, yeah.
Lisa: Roughly 20 people. What have you learned? There’s a big difference between working for yourself and being the one who is responsible for people. You’re responsible for their health and well being, health insurance and making sure that they get a paycheck, pay their mortgages. What have you learned from this?
Caleb: It comes back to this idea for me of discovering just how social and how important other people are to each one of us. You think of wolf packs or gorilla packs and how social they are and they’re all over each other, all the time and you look like healthy communities of engaged people and it’s pretty similar. We can’t get enough of each other.
What I did realize a long time ago, I remember one of my long time collaborators Jessica Jolene who works at my office. She reminds me that way back in 2006 or something, I said to her, she was straight out of school is like don’t worry about that little issue in architecture. The most important thing you’re ever going to deal with is just your relationships with other people.
The more further I go, what I am realizing is that the thing that has the most impact on my own well-being and my own happiness is the quality of relationships I have with other people. Probably you would tell me as a doctor that if my mental attitude is bright instead of gloomy, that that’s going to have an effect on my overall physical health as well.
The best way I can say this is to stay bright and not down is just really foster collaborative teams of people happy to be together, happy to be working together, happy to be working on the same issues together and to have real challenges in front of them. What we do is, I don’t care how you cut it is just not easy. Everyday there is a massive problem to be dealt with whether it would be a budget problem, a schedule problem, and a human resources problem.
There’s always big issues out there and we all have to be happy to tackle those challenges with a really positive attitude. I guess if I was to say what have I learned by growing an organization from one person to 20, we’re still a very small company but it’s just about how important leadership and very sensitive empathetic leadership is to getting something successfully done. You can’t treat people like cogs on the wheel and expect to get anywhere. Where we’re trying to go is to be a part of this overall architectural conversation. We’re all happy to do it. That’s probably the biggest thing. It’s just the importance of people.
Lisa: What’s your favorite project that you’re working on right now?
Caleb: Currently? That’s a good question. We have right now a project in Biddeford. It’s a water house field and it’s a famous within Maine, high school football stadium. It has the opportunity to reignite a passion in Biddeford amongst a certain crowd and potentially the whole community for a civic community pride. It has the opportunity to give students of Biddeford a chance to be really proud of their city and proud of who they are as athletes and if we can find a way with a limited resources we have for the project and with the political hurdles that we’ll have to cross to get the project funded, if we find a way to accomplish that, then I love what that project could do for a community of people and bringing them together and helping them find common ground.
It might not have the biggest architectural opportunities. Some extremely well funded homes just offer some wonderful opportunities to explore materials and beauty and all of this type of thing which I think is very exciting but this one could have a real impact on a community which is taking up a good chunk from my mind at the moment.
Lisa: Having spent much time at my grandmother’s house, grandparent’s house when I used to live on Gertrude Avenue in Biddeford and having had family members who are football players for Biddeford.
Caleb: It’s big, right?
Lisa: Many moons ago. I can certainly understand what you’re saying and the importance of I guess fostering good community spirit and having that be a piece of that.
Caleb: It could really be a leg up to a young athlete or kid from Biddeford to have a pride in their community, to leave a community to go to do something else but to remember to think back and have positive memories could really boost their … Give just a little push to their self-esteem and it’s just so important. An athletic program can really do that, give a framework by which you could start to understand the possibilities you have.
I think it’s really important. You can’t overstate what one little project is going to do in a kid’s life but all these little incremental pushes on the fly wheel if you will can help out and I think that’s one significant piece that we’re working on.
Lisa: Caleb, how can people find out about your architectural firm in the work that you’re doing?
Caleb: Type in my name and Maine and you’re all set. Look into it.
Lisa: Caleb Johnson. Google Caleb Johnson.
Caleb: That’s it. Be careful of the Caleb Johnson who won some singing contest. Caleb Johnson Maine, you’ll find us. It’s pretty basic.
Lisa: They can also of course go to Maine Home and Design, Maine Magazine websites. They can read about the things you’ve done, see the beautiful photos. I think you have several projects that are in the pipeline.
Caleb: We have several projects in the pipeline. That is true.
Lisa: It’s been a great pleasure to speak with you. We’ve been having a conversation with Caleb Johnson who is a main licensed architect and I appreciate all the work that you’re doing for our state and for coming and talking with me today.
Caleb: Absolutely. It was a pleasure.
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Lisa: Today, it is my great pleasure to speak with Kevin Browne who is a Maine licensed architect, a member of the National Council of Registration Boards and a member of the American Institute of Architects. He’s also a member of the US Green Building Council and the Portland Society of Architecture. He lives in West Falmouth with his wife and 2 children. Kevin is an active member of the Falmouth Memorial Library Board of Trustees where he’s currently Co-Chairman of the Library Expansion Committee. You’ve got a finger in every organization, don’t you?
Kevin: I try to. I don’t attend all the meetings, but I try to. It’s nice joining other colleagues to communicate every once in a while.
Lisa: I think that’s pretty great. It seems like you have really made a lot of connections within the architecture community and the community at large.
Kevin: I’ve been trying. It’s been a long process, but it’s getting there.
Lisa: Tell me a little bit about yourself. Where are you originally from?
Kevin: I grew up in Eastern Pennsylvania and then lived there for a little bit after I graduated from college in 1998 for about a year and worked in a commercial firm, architectural firm, typically mostly colleges and schools, and realized that you’re much smaller when you’re in a big organization like that. It wasn’t really what I wanted to do. My roommate from college worked in Camden at the time. He was like we’re looking for people.
I ended up moving to Camden, Maine and lived there for 3 years and worked in a high end residential firm which was the first time I’ve worked in the residential side of things and fell in love. I have moved south after living there for 3 years but it’s just such a great area that’s why I enjoy it so much.
Lisa: Why architecture? Why did you decide that this was the way that you wanted to spend your working life?
Kevin: I didn’t really know in high school. I took a bunch of technical drawing classes which were just basically drafting with pencil at the time. Now, it’s all computerized. I started out after high school, after taking 3 years of that technical drawing type of course I went to community college because my parents wanted to make sure if they’re paying for college that it’s a 5-year program.
They wanted to make sure before they spend all that money that this is something I was serious about. I went to community college for 2 years, got my associates degree in architecture. That was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania like the next town from where I grew up. Then from there, I went on to get my bachelor of architecture in Vermont, at Norwich University.
At that point, at the end of the community college I’ve really liked it. I really got a sense of what it was all about even though you really don’t get a full sense until you get into the real world. Then you really understand all the stuff that you do in school is dream world. It sets up for what you’re going to encounter in the real world.
Lisa: When you were growing up, what types of things did you like to do? Did you like to do art? Were you interested in math or science?
Kevin: I was more of a hands-on, I’m more of a technical person. That helped my decision when I was looking at schools, there was a lot of other schools that were more art related that were more technical. I’ve always been hands on, trying to understand how it works. It was either architecture, engineering was the other thought that I would go into. I think it goes back to my grandfather, who was the same way. He used to be a drafter and my mom shared some of those drawings as I was growing up. Old steam engines, he would draw and stuff like that. As I went along, I realized that was the right profession and track for life.
Lisa: I like that your parents wanted to make sure that you were certain. As a parent of a couple of college age children, I’m very interested in getting a good return on my investment.
Kevin: Sure. That’s much cheaper to do with community college. The community college had really a great professor that ran the architecture program and made a world of difference.
Lisa: You said that you started doing basically home building home architectural design when you came up to Maine. What were you doing before you did that?
Kevin: It was a commercial firm that there was probably 30 people but we had a lot of universities that we did work for. We did field houses. They also did medical like smaller hospital editions and things like that. At that point, I was the low man on the totem pole, just fresh out of school. I actually interned, I think the summer before I graduated with the same firm.
You get little pieces of the puzzle. No one gets to jump right in full 2 feet after college. You have to work your way up. I felt like it would be a much longer procession to do that in a larger firm. If we’re going to residential you jump in and you’re doing all aspects of a project. That was scary at first. It took a little getting used to but it was a great learning experience, learning that way.
Lisa: If you’re working on say, a hospital project or a healthcare facility, what aspect of that would they give you to work on?
Kevin: I think what I was working on, I did a lot of models actually which I really enjoy and I’ve always liked building things. I did a lot of models … I tend to give this to fresh out of school kids. I did models for interiors of the spaces and I did an outside model for a field house at Susquehanna University at the time. Those types of things.
At other times, I would just do what they call red lines is basically they had the lead architect on the project that person would mark up drawings just to make corrections and adjustments and all those things. It’s like just busy work. There’s not a lot of … You’re just shifting things and adjusting them. They mark it up. They do all this thinking about it and you’re just almost like a drafter in a way.
Lisa: If you’re building a model, you’re actually building a scale version of something that’s going to be built.
Kevin: Exactly.
Lisa: That’s perfect for somebody who likes hands-on stuff.
Kevin: That’s why I enjoy it so much. You don’t get to do that much these days because it’s all computer. It was nice doing that a lot earlier in my career.
Lisa: Tell me about that. I mean, I think about … I write a lot. I still like to go back and put pen on paper. There’s still something that’s very tangible, something very satisfying about that. I love the ignore the computer and then I can write an article for Maine Magazine and I can make edits really quickly. That’s great, but if I want to do any really soulful writing, I get in there with my pen and paper. Is there something similar about that for an architect?
Kevin: Definitely. Every project that I start, you can’t jump on the computer and start designing and getting your thoughts out freely. You’ll hit a roadblock right away. Every project I start very rough, very schematically is the first stage of a project we call a schematic design. Really it’s with trace paper. You’re just doing trace, after trace, after trace and you’re just trying to get something that feels like it flows good in terms of a floor plan and space between the spaces.
At the same time you’ve got to understand what the mass of the house is going to look like on the outside. Sort of trying to doodle. You’re doodling basically and it’s very rough and it’s very … It may not make any sense when you look at it but in your mind you know that your pen marks mean something. Then from there, it gets refined and refined every time. It’s just a lot of repetitive tracing and tracing over and tweaking as you go along.
That’s the way I’ve start every project and from there you get to a certain point where you have certain pieces of the house that seem that they work, to develop them further, I then start putting him into the computer program if it’s something your tracing that works and you’re going to develop it further. It’s just the process as you go through it.
Lisa: I’m sure this sounds like a silly question but is that why it’s called drafting?
Kevin: Exactly. Going through school, we didn’t do anything on a computer right after I graduated. We’d learn but they wanted you to learn that way. You did everything with pen and ink as their final drafting, but you use the slide rule. I still have one but I don’t really use it because everything is freehand, I’m doing by hand and then from there it’s busted. It takes up a lot of space too to have the big drafting boards, the drafting part of it.
Lisa: You have become very involved not only with the architectural community because at the beginning I listed off all these different organizations you’re a member of but also your own community as a member of the board of trustees, and the co-chairman of the library expansion committee for the film of library. Why has that been an interest of yours?
Kevin: It comes back probably 5 or 6 years ago. I was approached to team up with another Falmouth architect to do facilities analysis for the library because they are bursting at their scenes and they wanted to expand. We did an exercise to see what were the options.
At the time, Falmouth was looking to build the school, the old schools, the elementary school was going to be … 2 of the elementary schools were going to be vacating. Myself and my case, the other Falmouth architect teamed up and collaborated on just doing some facilities studies. It was just really schematic sketches like we were talking earlier.
Just trying to come up with space planning ideas, could we use these school or the other school that was vacant or did we build new. That was an exercise that we went through over a course of months. Ultimately, went to a town wide bond issue that we had to vote on. It never did pass but years later, it’s been revisited because everybody, soundly said that the library want to stay onsite.
At the time I wasn’t on the board of trustees but when they were trying to reorganize and try to get this live because they ultimately still need to expand. I was approached to join. There was a vacant seat on the board of trustees. They were looking to assemble any new board members with people that have experience in building or construction and just trying to help guide them through the next years to get to where they need to be which they’ve been trying for I think 10, 15 years to try to get the expansion going.
It’s exciting because now, I’m able to give back to the community which … I’ve been on a couple committees in town before those trails committee because I do a lot of mountain biking so it was a Falmouth Trails Committee. That absorbed into another group. This to me is more meaningful because I can really give my expertise and help them as we go through this process. It’s also nice being on the other side of the table and not actually having to do the work but actually overseeing it.
It’s commercial work so it’s a little different in my world than I’m used to in the residential end of things. It’s been really exciting. It’s a lot of time commitment. We meet once a week and it’s probably an hour, hour-and-a-half each time we meet but we’re slowly getting through this and now we’re going through the fundraising stage. We’re trying to balance the fundraising. It’s been a good process. It’s a great committee to be a part of and everybody gives a different aspect to the committee so it’s been interesting and learning for me.
Lisa: I’ve enjoyed the conversations in the past that I’ve had with your fellow architects Ron Wheaton and also Scott Simons who …
Kevin: Yeah, he’s working here.
Lisa: Who worked on the Portland Library. It’s an interesting idea for me, the idea of working on a library in particular because it’s got emotional attachment. It’s actually not unlike working on residential spaces. These are going to become people’s homes and people become very attached to ideas about what they want that to look like, but a library, I remember growing up in Yarmouth. I was at the library 2, 3 times a week as a little kid dragging my wheelbarrow full of books back behind me to my house. The idea of keeping it the same and yet allowing it to expand adequately to move in to the next era of use, that’s an interesting one.
Kevin: It definitely is. It’s been great working with Scott because he’s done so many of these libraries. It was clear when we were making the decision on who the architect should be, it was clear his expertise in the state and beyond that he was capable. I have to say, I’ve lived in Falmouth but I don’t attend the library a lot. To me, it’s listening to the staff and understanding where libraries are going.
I’ve gone to a couple of workshops with our committee just on designing a new library. We went down to Boston to the Boston Public library last year and they had an all day seminar just on where the libraries of the future and what you need to account for in its flexibility and technology. Everybody thought ebon of the eBook would make libraries non-existent, but it’s not the case from what that data I’m seeing from a library in Falmouth and just everybody else.
The library of the future is more of a community center. So many people work remotely. We’re planning for this with a new Falmouth libraries just planning for that, the laptop stations, the technology and that the challenges we don’t know where technology is going to go. The biggest thing is making sure that this new facility we’re going to be spending this money on, this facility make sure it’s flexible enough to adapt to the future.
We don’t know what it is but we have to make sure we make it flexible enough with the lighting and technology and all of that other stuff. It’s a learning curve for me but understanding what a library really has become because in a town like Falmouth, there’s not really a downtown. In a way, the library being on that side of town where there’s a lot of businesses and other things. It’s people come and it’s a community center.
They come and have coffee together or whatever. It’s exciting. When I started on the board, that was what was brought to my attention and it was really exciting to get part of that building and planning for the future. It’s only going to help the real estate values I think and just everything.
Lisa: Falmouth is an interesting example of how growth is managed and how it’s managed well. Just the town in general having Yarmouth is just on the other side of Falmouth. I’m in Falmouth all the time. There’s obviously been a business boom but there’s great sidewalks that have been put in. I think the businesses at the time weren’t that exciting along Route 1. It’s so great now to see people running on the sidewalks down Route 1. You’re right, the libraries tucked back behind a bunch of different businesses that I don’t know when they came into being, I don’t know, maybe 20, 30 years ago. There’s still enough of a town feel to it. I think that that’s really important.
Kevin: I think they’re trying to … They’ve done extensive work especially on Route 1. I think we’re referring to, to make it more of a community, walkable, very pedestrian friendly. We’ve been in a way that master plan that they have on Route 1 stretches up to the library in a way. We’re trying to make that pedestrian connection as well with the new design and bike racks and pedestrian crosswalks and things like that.
The town also wants us to put parking and keeping the building closer to the setbacks just to give you that more of a community feel. I think overall they’re changing their zoning to make it more of a community like that. They’re even talking about out by where I live in West Falmouth out along Route 100 putting [inaudible 00:48:56] in the next couple of years. They’re trying to build that part of the business center of Falmouth just making more business friendly and more pedestrian friendly at the same time.
Lisa: I think that’s actually one of my favorite things that has happened to my town and to places like Falmouth is just a recognition that people will use this side of the road if they feel safe. They will walk, they’ll bike. They’ll bring their kids out there. It’s just not put a nice building somewhere. It’s make that building accessible and make it human friendly. Talk about being human friendly and maybe also earth friendly, you are a member of the US Green Building Council. Talk about what that has meant to you as far as perhaps your approaches to architectural design?
Kevin: When I started out on my own practice 7 years ago, my big goal was at the time, I’ve done a lot of high end residential over the years but we never really paid too close attention … at the time, it wasn’t big. The energy wasn’t as big of a discussion point as it is now. We built these huge houses but we never really paid close attention to the building perimeter of the house. It’s insulated and air sealed and all those things.
As I develop my own practice, I could take it anywhere I wanted. That was the goal was to learn and to school myself. I’m still learning. There’s so much out there, all these new wall systems to use and just trying to build a better energy efficient house that you don’t have to either cool as much because the shell of the building, you spend time detailing. I tell clients that if they’re going to spend money to make sure they spend a little extra in a building shell just because it would be more comfortable overtime and it’s going to save them overtime. They may pay a little bit more upfront but I think overtime it’s a much more comfortable house to live in.
Lisa: Have you seen increased awareness of energy efficiency and maybe perhaps even more willingness to spend money in this area?
Kevin: Definitely. I think the products that they used have to come down. When the green word came out, everybody was flocking. I don’t like using the word. I like to use good design. It’s really what it’s about. It’s good design and things that you learn about in school. Some of the seminars, you get to do is just detailing the house and it’s good design. Just doing it the right way and paying attention to how watersheds off the house.
I think there definitely is more awareness. Each project is determined by the client. Yes, we’ve had a few clients that push the envelope basically to try to get this energy efficiency. We size glazing based on solar orientation and things like that but it’s not every client. Some people bring it up but at the same time they may have heard bits and pieces but they don’t understand the whole big picture.
It’s helpful for us to help educate those people and just make them understand a little bit more what it’s all about. Some of the things that would help and not cost a lot of money. It’s just window placement insulation. It’s definitely becoming more. I’m getting more and more projects where people are aware and want to push things a little further than others, but then there are other people that don’t necessarily know about it.
Our typical set of drawings and details is it’s better than standard code. We always like to do things a little better and detail it out in a way where it’s not just spec house that’s thrown up or something like that.
Lisa: You and your wife will be renting an RV for 2 weeks. You’re heading out west with your 7 and 10 year olds. How do you think that might inspire you in your architectural daily work?
Kevin: I’ve never really explored much of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. I think just seeing the architecture, I’ve seen a bunch of images in magazines and websites and things like that. I think every time I see something unique and new architectural creations, I always take pictures of it. It’s just inspiration and help in everything. Just integrating a little bit of the west maybe into some of the stuff that I might do here.
There are definitely certain things that you see in certain parts of the country but there’s nothing to say you can’t integrate some of those elements. I’ve always been wanting the nature or the scenery and it just excites me.
Lisa: Kevin, how can people find out about the work that you do and the designs that you are currently working on and maybe the work that you’re doing in Falmouth?
Kevin: I have a website that I have at kevinbrownarchitecture.com. I hadn’t been good about updating it last year, but my Facebook page is the most up to date. I have an Instagram account that I update pretty frequently with construction of current projects and sketches or anything that we might be working on or just interior things. It’s all different levels. We have a lot of different projects at different stages right now. It’s a little bit of all that.
I would say between those pieces it’s probably the best way to find out what we’re doing. The other thing is I’ve been trying to even and around the greater Portland area, that’s most of our work. We put signs out and some of the construction projects just so people can see some of the stuff we’re doing.
Lisa: I appreciate you taking the time to come in and talk to me today about the work that you do. I’m excited to see what happens with the Falmouth Memorial Library. I love libraries so it’ll be great to see on the other side of it, where you guys go with that. We’ve been speaking with Kevin Brown. He’s a Maine Licensed architect and owner of his own firm and member of the Falmouth memorial library board of trustees where he’s currently the co-chairman of the library expansion committee. That’s for the work that you’re doing and thanks for coming and talking to me today.
Kevin: Thank you for having me.