Brian Golden on Community Building
Brian shares how creative thinking can impact the infrastructure of a community through a thoughtful design process and sustainable development.
Brian Golden
How do you incorporate the needs and aspirations of the local community into your architectural designs?
“From a design tool perspective, all of our projects and particularly our public work, begin with outreach processes and identify stakeholders to invite together in a collaborative charette (intensive design study) to kick-off the design. Putting pen to paper through sketching, 3D modeling, plan and massing studies, is one of the most exciting parts of our work so that everyone involved can communicate through drawings.
In the big picture, familiarity of place is key to a successful design outcome that meets the needs and aspirations of our clients and the communities they serve. Sometimes, with our housing work, our client truly is the community itself. We do so through an initial focus on site analysis, developing our familiarity and then use the design process as a general response to that place and context. Specific site conditions and program needs combined together to create unique local solutions.”
Can you share an example of a project where you drew inspiration from the surrounding environment or local culture?
“Continuing those thoughts above, in all of our work we believe in connecting places and client needs by responding to site, climate, cultural, and built environments. We think of adapting to these 4 “places” through a responsive approach drives our work to be locally impactful and also flexible- working on a variety of project types, commercial to residential, budgets and goals, to utilize custom, prefab, or solutions to best fit the project.
These environments are the inspiration and foundation of our design process as represented in the symbols within our logo. Our red barn project, located in Emma next to Highway 82, was a contemporary interpretation of vernacular farm and ranch building forms. The taught red exterior shell is supported by custom open wood trusses to create those amazing big interior barn spaces.”
In what ways do you believe architecture can contribute to a more sustainable and innovative community?
“So many! From a perspective of environmental sustainability, the construction industry, through energy use and building construction, represents one third of our global consumption, emissions, and waste. Sustainable design practices have always existed and we can do better to start with basic passive design strategies, site orientations, etc so that with our innovative technologies and active systems of today we can achieve net-zero energy and better more commonly. Smart architectural design can sometimes mean multi-use spaces and more efficient floor plans so we build less as well, inherently using less construction materials while reducing costs and energy. We also have a sustainable economic and social responsibility in our architecture as well.”
Projects of 2757 Design x Build Co.
Looking ahead, what trends or changes do you foresee in local architecture that could enhance community interaction and creativity?
“Well, there is Housing. And, Housing. Also, Housing.
We must look toward infill with support for density versus continuing to expand into our open spaces between our towns. Making our towns work better by encouraging and incentivizing downtown development that maintains vitality already close to schools and essential needs, less commuting… Since we can’t build ourselves out of a housing and climate crisis simultaneously, we also have to find creative adaptive reuse and zoning policy solutions.
Did I mention housing? :)”
Where can people find some of your work, and/or more information about 2757 Design Co. ?
We’re very grateful to have had a lot of great clients and collaborations here in Carbondale and around the valley, so we love that our work is a bit all around us locally… Some included in the photos above.
You can find more of our work and learn more about our process at 2757design.co and follow us on Instagram. Or come see us on Main Street, next to Peppino’s, and do some architecture window shopping… we enjoy using our studio as our creative space and to exhibit some of our current and past work. Drop in and say hi and let us know what you think!