Landscape Architecture: Landscape Architecture: - School of ...

concept to work as a process, designers must both understand
and work within the limitations of local construction practices,
climate, municipal code issues and politics, as well as
materials and product availability. In other words, Italian
marble will not be specified for a Tailored Home when there is
a locally available stone. Likewise, understanding the
normative local practices of the various construction trades
helps enormously in ensuring the realistic achievement of
design details. Thus in the interests of economics, many design
decisions with the Tailored Home are actually driven by these
local processes and constraints.
The professional approach adopted by Brown and
Housebrand is really based on the desire to architecturally
resist the normative new suburban development, and this, the
firm’s principals concluded, meant creating a design and
construction process that was as easy for the Housebrand
home buyer as the process for a typical suburban home.
With the dual goals of providing a residential architectural
service that is as easy as that offered by suburban developers,
and expanding the architectural development of established
Calgary neighbourhoods, Housebrand is providing a
meaningful alternative to the process of designing and
renovating residential properties. The practice is also
expanding the demographic that is able to hire an architect
and engage in personalised design within a reasonable budget.
Loraine Fowlow is Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Architecture
in the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary, Canada.
She is an award-winning writer with a focus on the area of the (in)authentic
environment, and her writing on this subject has been presented in Oxford,
Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Portugal and numerous American cities. She is coauthor
of the book Wine by Design (Wiley-Academy, 2005), and her work
has appeared in the Design Journal, Canadian Encyclopedia and many
other publications.
Text © 2007 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images © Housebrand Construction Ltd
Resumé
John L Brown
1980
BSc (Civil Engineering), University of Manitoba
1983
MArch, University of Texas
1984
MSc (Building Design), Columbia University
1997–2000
Co-director, Architecture Programme, Faculty of
Environmental Design, University of Calgary
2000
Founded Housebrand
2002
Prairie Design Award, Alberta Association of
Architects, for Housebrand’s Millennium
Landmark structure, Millennium Park, Calgary
2003
Award of Excellence for Innovation in
Architecture, Royal Architectural Institute of
Canada
2006
Prairie Design Award for the Housebrand’s
Rothney Astrophysical Observatory Visitor
Centre, Calgary
1984–5
Hellmuth Obata Kassabaum Architects, Dallas,
Texas
1985
Professor of Architecture, Faculty of
Environmental Design, University of Calgary
1985–6
Andrishak & Sturgess Architects, Calgary
1987
Founded Zeug Design
1990–3
Director, Architecture Programme, Faculty of
Environmental Design, University of Calgary
1995
Founded Studio Z
Housebrand principals Matthew North, Carina
van Olm and John Brown.
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