Brain Papa, MADE

Define design-build in terms of what it means to your practice.

Design-build is a process of making where our understanding of fabrication and practice of design inform each other constantly. This includes concern for quality, beauty, and function, but most importantly it strives toward something poetic and artistic.

Which shop work do you do yourselves and which is contracted out?

We use our shop for two purposes: for the production of millwork and custom fabrication, and as a laboratory. We test ideas and fabricate prototypes and are constantly making samples. Our shop is geared toward woodworking, but we also handle metals, plastics, cast plaster, even rubber work. We select some shop projects specifically because they will challenge our capabilities. In general, we subcontract about 75 percent of the work. We oversee all aspects of our construction projects and collaborate closely with anyone to whom we subcontract work, which includes all of the licensed trades and quite a few specialty trades, including stone, glass, and architectural metals.

Describe the signing-off process required for nonlicensed architects in order to make the building legal.

New York City requires all new buildings and any renovation project that is not a normal repair to be filed with the Department of Buildings by either a registered engineer or licensed architect. A designer can collaborate with a licensed architect to meet these requirements.

How does design-build benefit the client, and how does it benefit the architect?

We’ve found a lot of success with our more direct relationship where the designer and builder are one and the same. It has allowed our design team to develop an understanding of what is realistic in terms of construction. Our clients know that everyone involved in the project, from schematic design through the completion of the punch list, is genuinely interested in the highest level of quality, that the party responsible for executing the work onsite is invested in the design, and that this affects all decisions that take place during construction. Our process emphasizes understanding our clients’ needs and creating a project with them, which is formally and functionally tied to their desires. The result is a fresh, contemporary, and entirely human architecture.