Architecture to Bring People Together
Community
Community architecture in the 20th century was all about function over form. That thinking has shifted in recent years, and we’re excited to be a part of this revolution in our field. Our community projects strive to combine function with aesthetic decisions, creating a work of art that inspires people to celebrate their community and neighborhoods.
Our Civic, Municipal, and Community Projects
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Create a Space to Bring People Together
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Anchoring Communities With Intentional Design
The days of the boring government office block are over. Today’s community leaders understand that civic structures—town halls, courthouses, municipal offices, community centers, parks, monuments, and others—can be more than just a place for people to come for service. These buildings and landscapes can be anchors around which a community develops.
BTBB’s municipal, civic, and community architecture projects look beyond basic functionality to address a community’s desire for beautiful public spaces. When a project successfully combines effective work or play space with a design that beautifies the entire community, we call it a success.
How Does BTBB Approach Community Architecture?
Civic and community architecture projects often require a slightly different approach from our other projects. As the majority of these projects are either fully publicly funded or are part of a public-private partnership, success requires a full understanding of both the traditional delivery process (design-bid-build) and the intricacies of government contracting.
In every community architecture project, our experience allows us to anticipate and address some of the challenges that these projects, particularly those in the public sector, can offer:
- A strict and inflexible bidding process
- Heightened maintainability and durability requirements
- A need to appeal to a wide and highly diverse audience
- Requirements to create multifunctional spaces
- A tighter needle to thread between “form” and “function.”
From Day One, we leverage our considerable experience and dedication to our craft in order to address these and other challenges that occur in every phase of construction projects.
Complete Civic, Municipal, and Community Architecture Services
We are proud to be selected by so many communities to build or reinvent their spaces. Our work has included many different forms of community architecture, and we’re excited by the prospect of working with more communities in the future.
- Facility renovations, or adapting an existing structure for a community purpose
- New construction projects
- City halls, courthouses, and civic complexes
- Community centers and public-use spaces
- Parks, recreation facilities, and performance spaces
- Other community architecture projects
The BTBB Experience: Hands-On Community Architecture Services
As a BTBB client, you’ll enjoy what we call our hands-on experience. A company principal is involved with every single project we take on, and our team remains hands-on with the project from initial consultation until ribbon-cutting and beyond.
Relying on a small, local team means you’ll get to know us and vice versa. When you have a question, you’ll have a single point of contact who’s ready to provide the answer you need.
Detailed Discovery and Building Program Creation
As we said above, we start every project by listening. During your initial consultations, we’ll explore your goals for the project and your expectations for your new space. We’ll also begin the process that we call “problem-seeking”—thinking through your entire project from start to finish and anticipating the challenges that might arise.
From there, we develop a complete and detailed building program – the “specification requirements” for your project. Your building program will inform every decision your project’s designers, planners, contractors, and other specialists make. A program can include:
- Space and functionality requirements
- Surface and finish requirements
- Engineering (plumbing, electrical, environmental, etc.) requirements
- Special permitting challenges or ecological concerns
- Specific site aesthetic concerns (i.e., meeting signage or streetscape appearance requirements)
- Any other details that will impact the progress or completion of the project
Community Architecture Design From an Award-Winning Team
With your building program finalized, our architects will get to work on designing your project. We approach each design as a unique opportunity to make an existing space better or create a new space that meets the client’s current and future needs.
Our goal with any design is to balance form and function. We’re not going to draw a gorgeous flight of fancy that your budget could never make real, nor are we going to give you a highly functional but aesthetically boring design. We create functional beauty.
Throughout the design process, we work closely with you and your team to ensure that our work aligns perfectly with your project goals and to stay on top of any changes in the project’s details.
When we’ve created a design that works for your community and that fits within your time and budgetary constraints, we’re ready to break ground.
Turnkey Construction and Project Management Services
With more than 50 years of experience in construction and project management, BTBB has developed a strong network of local contractors, designers, engineers, and other construction professionals who can take your project from the page to Main Street.
No matter which construction delivery method you choose, we have the skill, experience, and connections to assemble a highly effective construction phase team. We have experience with:
- Traditional Delivery (Design-Bid-Build) projects
- Design-Build projects
- Construction Management-at-Risk projects
We’re your trusted partner throughout the entire construction and close-out phases. We oversee project progress, ensure program compliance, and coordinate the work of contractors and subcontractors to help ensure on-time and in-budget completion.