-: My name is Stewart Godfrey and I am an architect.
We work in public education, primarily,
we do a lot of K12 projects, public schools,
we do a lot of work with higher ed facilities,
and a lot of work in the public library sector.
There's a lot of different ways
that we get brought into projects.
We like to be involved very early, when we're thinking about
the "what-ifs" and how do we do something big
or something new, or think about a problem from
a little bit different angle, so sometimes that looks like,
simple things, like, oh we got a roof leak,
or we need some pavement work done,
or something sort of mundane and maintenance,
and then other times we're working with teachers and
educators and people involved in the organization that
might be wanting to think about something different,
how do we make a shift from
an old technology to a new technology,
how do we make a shift to in-service from
the way things used to be done to now,
where they may be going in the future.
So we like to be brought in early,
we like to talk and plan and think and strategize
on ways that the built environment can support
the work that the various organizations are doing.
And then we just stay with a project all the way through,
sometimes we start with a study,
and we look at the "what-ifs",
and we think about the costs,
and we develop different solutions and strategies
for solving those problems,
and then we see projects all the way through.
We do the design process, we help the client through
construction, and then even in the year and years after.
Many of our clients are repeat clients,
so we say we build friendships over time, that's the goal.
We work on both types of projects,
we work on interior renovation projects,
we work on restoration projects,
we work on new construction projects.
We like to think that our practice is built on being nimble
and we're able to take really complicated projects
and solve them.
One of the first projects I worked on was a library project,
where, it was an existing building,
we were building additions on both sides,
and the building sat on sloping property,
and so part of the building was, part of the second floor
of the building was a slab on grade,
so elevated slab on grade, and we actually
held up the building and carved out the bottom of it
and put space underneath it
while the whole building was occupied.
So, once we did that, I kinda realized,
you can really do just about anything in architecture.