Centerbrook’s “model shop” does more than create architectural models. From the obscure, mundane to the fantastic and transcendent, any object that contributes to design excellence is within our purview.

The shop has a 3D printer and an anvil. We use them both to make contrivances like: “fake” currency, asteroids, sculpture, column capitals, diagrammatic planning pieces, door knockers, material sample panels, awards, art installations, scientific apparatus, props, fountains, wall stencils, furniture, ornament, lighting, and signage.

We recently fashioned a full-sized mockup of an entry sign for Greenwich Country Day School’s new Upper School campus (Phase II). The design of the two-sided sign will be fashioned from quarter inch Corten plate steel, “folded” to create a channel shape. The school’s logo will be laser pierced through the steel, while the school name will be composed of 3D, CNC cut, pin-mounted aluminum letters. The inside surfaces of the channel will be painted orange so the design “pops.”

For the mock-up, we substituted quarter inch medium-density fiber (mdf) board for the steel. The pierced logo was made on our laser cutter and seamlessly embedded into the mdf with epoxy. The 3D letters were also laser cut, then painted to look like aluminum. Before attaching the letters, the “steel channel” was artistically painted to match patinaed Corten. Being two-sided, the sign allowed us to do slightly different iterations of the logo. We applied the orange to a removable panel so we could evaluate the design with or without it.

The mock-up served three primary functions.

First, we wanted to evaluate the sign itself. How does it look? Is it the right size? Can you read it at a distance from a moving car?

Second, we wanted to determine the sign’s location. Where exactly should it go? How high should it be? At what precise angle? What could be obscuring sight lines to it?

Third, and unbeknownst to us, was that the evening of the day we evaluated the sign, the school was having an important event. They were so pleased with the sign that they wanted to show it off to build interest in the project. They asked us if we could leave the sign in situ. Of course, we complied.

We faked it. And by faked it, we made it look real. Really real. Really steely real. On that day, the “model shop” contributed to the excellence we strive for every day.

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Patrick McCauley

Patrick McCauley is Centerbrook’s Master Model Maker and Product Designer. In addition to making furniture, architectural models and lighting fixtures, he created a six-foot two-inch scale replica of the historic “Aphrodite,” a classic powerboat that once ferried President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Hyde Park. The model is on permanent display at the Ocean House in Watch Hill, R.I.

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While our Friday post-lunch tradition is to serve dessert treats during Sugar Cube presentations, Associate Principal Mark Herter reminded us why that is not always good for our health or for the environment.

Prior to architecture, Mark was in the food and beverage industry. He keeps current on evolving trends in the restaurant world, and faithfully prepares hearty salads for lunch. He described how poorly many Americans eat – empty calories packed with sugars and carbohydrates. While convenient and cheap, he argues that Twinkies, white bread, and other ultra-processed foods, are not really food at all.

Generations of this behavior, Mark explained, have caused a sharp decline in the number of edible plants produced worldwide, from 120,000 in 1900 to fewer than 30,000 today, of which we eat only about 150. In fact, nearly 75 percent of the global food supply comes from just 12 crops and five animals. Further, nearly 60 percent of our calories come from just three crops. Unhealthy for us, unsustainable for the planet.

There is hope. Beyond the farm-to-table movement, chefs like Erik Oberholtzer of California’s Tender Greens fast-casual restaurant chain are experimenting daily with organic fruits, plants, meats, nuts, and seeds to create fresh, beautifully presented food at affordable prices. Partnering with Crop Trust in 2017, Oberholtzer champions biodiversity, reintroducing “forgotten foods” like those found in the Global Seed Vault buried deep in Norway’s permafrost. And the food and beverage brand Knorr has launched a campaign for healthier eating. The goal of Future 50 Foods is to promote diet diversity, creating healthier people and a healthier planet. Mark extended that challenge to all of us.

To tickle our taste buds, Mark brought ingredients for a healthy lunch and dessert. His favorite, the lunch salad, was arugula with caramelized onions, walnuts, and goat cheese. And for dessert: Greek yogurt topped with blueberries, “superfoods” like almonds and sesame seeds, and flax seed, an ancient crop that reduces inflammation, and also helps prevent heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

We accepted and met Mark’s challenge: the salad and yogurt disappeared; the box of dessert treats was still full.

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Chris Hill

Chris is Centerbrook’s Director of Business Development. A 1994 graduate of Gettysburg College, he spent six years in Washington, DC as an aide to U. S. Senator Joseph Lieberman and as deputy director of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation for America’s Heritage Abroad. He returned to his native Connecticut in 2001, serving for two years as a development officer at The Nature Conservancy before joining Centerbrook.

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At a recent Friday dessert conclave, Ryan Hansen described his year-long thesis research about how grocery store self-checkout kiosks have changed the way customers and staff interact with technology and with each other.

Ryan considered how cities spur civic engagement, and applied urban design principles to his analysis, with the goal of improving the customer experience. He surveyed new models for full automation like Amazon Go as well as Japan’s flourishing vending machine culture, necessitated by an aging population and dearth of low-cost labor.

Ryan’s research focused on Minnesota’s Lunds & Byerlys grocery store chain, which broadly implements self-checkout in its stores. He spent time in the St. Paul flagship studying how customers interacted with the kiosks; exploring demographic and design issues with an in-house architect, interior designer, and financial analyst; and interviewing cashiers and attendants to learn how self-checkout affected their daily tasks. He also visited Target and Walmart to see how their checkout areas were organized.

Ryan found that self-checkout has broad ergonomic, social, spatial, and organizational implications that all can be influenced by design. How intuitive is the self-checkout screen? What is the best pitch and volume of a warning buzzer? How can the checkout area be organized to enhance security and improve worker satisfaction? What visual cues can ease traffic flow? How can lighting and color induce calm?

Ryan’s hope is that careful planning and design can promote healthy human interactions, even when we’re picking up milk and eggs on the way home.

Author information

Chris Hill

Chris is Centerbrook’s Director of Business Development. A 1994 graduate of Gettysburg College, he spent six years in Washington, DC as an aide to U. S. Senator Joseph Lieberman and as deputy director of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation for America’s Heritage Abroad. He returned to his native Connecticut in 2001, serving for two years as a development officer at The Nature Conservancy before joining Centerbrook.

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The national American Institute of Architects has a number of member interest groups, called ‘Knowledge Communities.’ These range from committees focusing on particular types of projects to practice and technical issues. They began 50 years ago with the establishment of a ‘Committee on Aesthetics,’ now the ‘Committee on Design,’ that was fostered by the late Jean-Paul Carlhian, a partner in Shepley Bullfinch, the Boston firm that evolved out of HH Richardson’s office. Jean-Paul felt that design was too often overlooked by the business oriented AIA as well as the American public, and that the institute needed an ‘ombudsman’ group that would promote good design within and without the AIA.

Over the past 50 years, the Committee on Design has thrived. It does important work for the AIA as a whole, selecting awards juries and finding candidates for special institute honors. When it began in 1969, it met at AIA headquarters to discuss issues and to organize the AIA’s design awards and then visit an American city to focus on a particular issue. By the time I joined in 1980, the Committee was visiting two cities as well as Washington, and the visits included extensive tours as well as discussions. This grew out of Jean-Paul’s (and others’) strong conviction that to be truly comprehended, architecture must be seen in place, not through photographs. And that led as well to the requirement that annual national awards finalist buildings be visited by a jury member.

Recently, Jim Childress and I joined past chairs of the committee in San Francisco to celebrate its 50th birthday at a Committee on Design conference on innovation. It was wonderful to reconnect with many old distinguished friends and see the latest and greatest work arising out of Silicon Valley and San Francisco’s tech culture.

Jim and I are very proud to come from one of only three firms in the country (Pei and Partners has had three) that provided more than one chairman in the Committee’s history. I was mildly horrified that my chairmanship tenure (1986) was the oldest represented at the reunion, but time passes quickly when you are having fun! Jim’s was 2015 and even that seems long ago now.

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Mark Simon

Mark Simon, FAIA, received his B.A. in 1968 from Brandeis University with honors in Sculpture, and his Master of Architecture degree from Yale University in 1972. He has served on numerous design award juries and has taught architectural design at Yale, Harvard, the University of Maryland, Carnegie Mellon, North Carolina State University, and the Rhode Island School of Design. He is one of four partners at Centerbrook Architects and Planners in Centerbrook, Connecticut.

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One of the sayings we have around here about our approach to design is; “endearing is enduring.” As we found during a recent event, the UConn Chemistry Building is Example 1.a. of that catchphrase.

In the two decades since the ribbon was cut, the building has endeared itself so much so that the Chemistry Department organized two days’ worth of events to celebrate its 20th anniversary. We were honored to take part in the festivities. Principal-in-Charge Mark Simon and Project Manager Jim Coan led the Blueprint Architect Tour of the building, and Mark took part in an exclusive Q&A session, going behind the scenes of how the project came to fruition.

As with any anniversary event, it was a trip down memory lane for those involved from the beginning. The first of two guided building tours started with a look at our model, which prompted Art Dimock (then-department head, now-lecturer emeritus) to recall a tidbit from the original planning meeting where the lone request from UConn Facilities Management was that the building have a pitched roof. Apparently one less building they had to worry about a flat [leaky] roof was a high priority.

The tours elicited a number of questions and comments. During one chem lab stop, a guest mentioned that there is a noticeable lack of any chemical odor. “It smells good in here.” Art attributed that to the building’s robust ventilation system.

Another guest, who is a new professor in the department and joined the tour to learn more about the building, was impressed that the labs have whiteboards on three walls – providing ample space for class participation.

One of the main talking points across both tours was the considerable extent of building systems and services necessary for a chem lab – fire protection piping, supply air ductwork, power, water, lab gases, telecommunications, etc. – and how they were laid out in layers that rundown the hallway and split off to each lab. There are no suspended ceilings in the lab areas and corridors. The original intent was, as needs and wants change over time – say changing a dry lab to a wet lab, or vice versa – that conversion work would be minimal. Building manager Tyler Cardinal confirmed the ease of access is indeed as originally intended.

Special access to the attic was granted for our tours. The sheer size of the equipment housed there is quite impressive, with the massive air handlers needed to properly vent a 200,000-square-foot chemistry building. As Mark noted, it’s also defacto bonus storage space not found in a flat roof building.

Overall, there have been very few changes in the 20 years since the Chemistry Building opened. A small library was converted to a tutoring room since journals are now accessible online. A computer lab was also adapted to a research lab since dedicated desktop workstations are no longer a necessity. There are more student locker spaces in the labs since enrollment is up in the last 20 years. Naturally, the size of equipment and instrumentation has decreased over the years, so the way some spaces are utilized has changed a bit as a result. The nuclear magnetic resonance equipment, for one, has changed dramatically. But as Mark commented upon entering one of the general chemistry labs, which can be extrapolated to the building on the whole, it pretty much is as it was in 1999.

And as it became clear from the event’s planning stages through execution, the building has indeed endured as it has endeared itself to so many. Chemistry department head Dr. Christian Bruckner, a great champion of the building, noted that only one chem faculty member has chosen to leave UConn for another institution since the building opened. He added that it is likewise a great recruiting tool for prospective faculty.

In fact, the Chemistry Building is so revered, it was commemorated on a cake during the event’s luncheon. Two cakes, to be exact!

Fun Fact #1:

The 14 large stacks perched on the roof ridges (see above) are prominent feature of the Chemistry Building’s exterior. Each is fed by multiple exhaust ducts – some more than others (see below) – but they are uniform in their size at seven feet wide by 19 feet high. Wind studies determined the height that would safely disperse the exhaust and reduce the potential for reentrainment at air intakes at this and adjacent buildings. And to add to the stack discussion – one of the 14 is actually for aesthetic purposes to keep the uniformity, and has no exhaust function. We’re not telling you which one, though!

Fun Fact #2:

The floor tile in the hallways of the two lab wings have a feature that would likely go undetected by a guest, but is essential knowledge to lab users. The darker tiles designate where the emergency services are located. So if one accidentally gets chemicals in their face, perhaps resulting in impaired vision, they can trek toward the distinguished dark tiles for the wash station. And to answer a follow-up question from the tour, there is no drain at the emergency wash station since the chemicals have to be safely contained.

Fun Fact #3:

The Chemistry Building has its own machine shop in the basement, where instruments can be manufactured or modified as needs arise for different experiments. There was also originally a glass blowing shop next door to the machine shop, but that service has since been outsourced.

To see more about the 20th anniversary events, UConn Chemistry set up a webpage on their site to commemorate the milestone. You can also check out this preview of the events from the UConn student newspaper.

Author information

Jason Cunningham

Jason is Centerbrook's public relations director. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in his home state of Illinois, Jason spent 12 years in the field of sports communications before joining Centerbrook in 2016 to manage the firm's PR and social media efforts. He is a member of the board of directors for the Southeastern New England chapter of PRSA.

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An effort years in the making, it was officially announced that a fishway will be installed on our campus this summer. The following is a news release from The Nature Conservancy that details this exciting project:

Falls River to Benefit from Fishway Construction this Summer

CENTERBROOK, CT (March 12, 2019) – Migratory alewife and blueback herring will soon be able to reach additional high-quality habitat—including the 59-acre Mill Pond in Centerbrook—with The Nature Conservancy’s construction of two fishways on the Falls River this summer.

To be built at the Mill Pond and Dolan Pond dams, the fishways also will benefit migratory American eel and other resident fish and improving overall river health.

The building of a fishway around the 18-foot tall Mill Pond dam, which is slated to begin in late summer, is supported by a generous $250,000 grant from the John T. and Jane A. Wiederhold Foundation. The Nature Conservancy continues to raise money to round out support for the project.

The Dolan Pond dam fishway project—expected to kick off as early as July—is supported by the Audubon Connecticut In-Lieu Fee Program and Tom’s of Maine. Tom’s of Maine’s support for the Mill Pond dam project is part of a larger contribution of $1.8 million to TNC to help restore and revitalize waterways in need.

There are more than 4,000 dams in Connecticut. Most of these dams were built during the Colonial and Industrial periods and no longer serve the purposes for which they were built. They do, however, block fish migration and impact river health.

“Migratory fish like alewife and blueback herring need access to upstream freshwater habitat to reproduce and rebuild their own populations,” said Sally Harold, director of river restoration and fish passage for TNC in Connecticut. “These dams keep them from getting to that critical habitat.”

Without a robust population of fish like alewife, an entire host of creatures including turtles, otters, racoons, eagles and many marine fish lose a critical food source.

In cases where dams can’t be taken down, fishways—sometimes called fish ladders—provide an alternate approach to opening access to habitat.

Fishways are made up of a series of ascending pools or a roughened chute that allows fish to get over or around a dam. Migrating fish swim upstream through the flowing water that connects the pools, resting in the pools along the way.

At 18-feet tall, the Mill Pond dam—which is only a half-mile upstream from the Dolan Pond dam—is the larger of two projects.

For that project, The Nature Conservancy is working with Centerbrook Architects, the dam’s owner, to develop opportunities for the public to view alewife on their journey upstream through a viewing window that will be incorporated into the fishway wall

The Mill Pond and Dolan Pond fishways will be TNC’s second and third fishways on the Falls River. In 2014, TNC and partners built a fishway downriver at the Tiley-Pratt dam.

Author information

Jason Cunningham

Jason is Centerbrook's public relations director. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in his home state of Illinois, Jason spent 12 years in the field of sports communications before joining Centerbrook in 2016 to manage the firm's PR and social media efforts. He is a member of the board of directors for the Southeastern New England chapter of PRSA.

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Our extensive Yale Peabody Museum of Natural history renewal project has recently received approval from both the New Haven Board of Alders and the City Planning Commission. As part of the municipal approval process, a number of new renderings were made public for the first time.

Among these renderings are two images of the Central Gallery, the first interior views to be released. The Central Gallery is the centerpiece of the project’s new construction, a four-story infill addition between the Peabody Museum and neighboring Environmental Science Center.

Also included in this image update are six new exterior views featuring landscape designs by James Corner Field Operations, whose portfolio includes award-winning projects like the High Line in Manhattan and Brooklyn’s Domino Park.

The multi-year project is currently targeted to commence construction in March 2020. More information can be found in this detailed update from the Yale Daily News.

Author information

Jason Cunningham

Jason is Centerbrook's public relations director. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in his home state of Illinois, Jason spent 12 years in the field of sports communications before joining Centerbrook in 2016 to manage the firm's PR and social media efforts. He is a member of the board of directors for the Southeastern New England chapter of PRSA.

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We worked on 70 different projects in one capacity or another in 2018. While some have garnered their fair share of attention, others have yet to be fully revealed, either as concept designs or as built projects.

Without giving away too much at the current time, here is a cross-section of images featuring some of our work from the past year. Also included are a few frames from recently completed projects that were photographed for the first time in 2018.

Author information

Jason Cunningham

Jason is Centerbrook's public relations director. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in his home state of Illinois, Jason spent 12 years in the field of sports communications before joining Centerbrook in 2016 to manage the firm's PR and social media efforts. He is a member of the board of directors for the Southeastern New England chapter of PRSA.

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Book lists have long been a holiday shopping season staple. You’ve seen them. They can be found everywhere this time of year. This may not even be the first book list you’ve read today.

That’s right. We’ve got our own list of books to seek out this year. We’re sure your favorite architecture magazine or website has a collection that makes recommendations from across the entire industry, but this list was established with an admitted self-interest. Our compilation pulls together recent books that have featured Centerbrook projects, as well as a pair that we’ve authored.

So whether you choose to visit your favorite local book retailer, or open up the world’s most popular marketplace app on your mobile device, the following is what to look for:

Cocktails and Conversations: Dialogues on Architectural Design
Abby Suckle & William Singer
Centerbrook Principal Mark Simon participated in an entertaining installment of the unique “Cocktails and Conversations” lecture series along with John Ruble of Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners. Published in November, this book highlights more than six years of lectures by a who’s who of eminent designers, including Simon’s and Ruble’s talk on the late, great Charles Moore, founder of both Centerbrook and MYR. Eight different Centerbrook projects are pictured in the book, as is a recipe for the cocktail crafted especially for the event, the “Mooretini.”

Connecticut Architecture: Stories of 100 Places
Christopher Wigren
Also published just in time for the holiday season, this compilation highlights the most historic and distinctive places in the Constitution State. Yale University’s ultra-sustainable Kroon Hall, home to the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, is featured in the book’s first section titled “Shaping the Landscape.” Centerbrook teamed with Hopkins Architects on the project, which was completed in 2009.

Ocean House: A Sense of Place, The History of Ocean House
Lauren DiStefano & Deborah Stewart
This brand new book takes an extensive and fascinating look at the history of the esteemed Rhode Island resort. The present day Ocean House is widely recognized as one of the world’s finest properties, and is arguably Centerbrook’s most publicized project. The book dedicates 20 pages of prose and pictures to its foreword, written by Centerbrook Principal Jefferson B. Riley, architect of the Ocean House.

The Architectural Story of Quinnipiac University: Four Decades, Three Campuses, Two Presidents, One Architect
Jefferson B. Riley
Written by Riley, this comprehensive compilation chronicles the unprecedented story of one architect designing for a college for more than 40 years. Riley’s detailed descriptions and imagery go behind the scenes of campus planning and design like never before. The book, which went on sale this past May, also includes Riley’s updated campus master plan and vision for potential future developments at Quinnipiac. As a bonus, fellow Centerbrook Principal Chad Floyd analyzes the evolution of college campuses in the afterword.

Centerbrook 4
Jefferson B. Riley, Mark Simon, Chad Floyd, Jim Childress
We will reach back to 2017 for this one to provide a reminder that our latest book representing Centerbrook’s collective portfolio is still relatively new and easily found in the market. Rich with imagery and insight, this book was composed by each of our four principals at the time – Riley, Simon, Floyd and Jim Childress – and highlights their most notable work from the 21st century.

The American House: 100 Contemporary Homes
Hannah Jenkins
Also from 2017, this title includes Riley’s own new residence that he designed along with his wife, Mary Wilson. The book dedicates four pages to the Riley-Wilson house, known as the eMBarkerdero, which is perched majestically along the Connecticut River.

A Setting for Excellence, Part II: The Story of the Planning and Development of the Ann Arbor Campus of the University of Michigan
Frederick W. Mayer
This book from 2017 is a second installment that goes behind the scenes of the planning and development at one of the nation’s premier public institutions of higher learning. Centerbrook’s School of Public Health complex is profiled as part of the book’s chapter on the evolution of the Medical Center.

Author information

Jason Cunningham

Jason is Centerbrook's public relations director. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in his home state of Illinois, Jason spent 12 years in the field of sports communications before joining Centerbrook in 2016 to manage the firm's PR and social media efforts. He is a member of the board of directors for the Southeastern New England chapter of PRSA.

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There are unknowns in translating design into reality. Luckily, in some instances, we can test concepts right here at Centerbrook.

Our project for The Basilica of Saint John the Evangelist in Stamford, Connecticut, features an outdoor courtyard encircled by a trellised walkway. The design calls for three dozen or so light fixtures mounted between the steel columns that form the trellis to illuminate the walkway underfoot and the vegetated canopy overhead.

With this one seemingly simple concept comes a number of questions, though. How will the fixture mount? What height would be comfortable for passersby? How far and at what angles will the light diffuse? Is it bright enough? And so on.

To answer these questions and more, project manager Dan Batt enlisted our facilities manager (and former general contractor) Ron Campbell to construct a full-size column mock-up. He then invited lighting designer Mark Loeffler and light fixture supplier David Mainville from Illuminate here to test the setup. The fixture came from Pathway Lighting Products in nearby Old Saybrook.

The mock-up proved to be more than beneficial. A comfortable height was established. Preferences were discussed for mounting. And perhaps best of all, the specified fixture performed as intended.

Author information

Jason Cunningham

Jason is Centerbrook's public relations director. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in his home state of Illinois, Jason spent 12 years in the field of sports communications before joining Centerbrook in 2016 to manage the firm's PR and social media efforts. He is a member of the board of directors for the Southeastern New England chapter of PRSA.

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