BCT @ 50

At BCT Architects, we are super excited to celebrating our 50th Anniversary. When Fred Craig and Roger Brown left the Rouse Company in 1969 to form this practice, they brought innovative ideas with them about the future of cities and towns. Although we still like to think like a “Start – Up”, our experience really does provide a perspective that gives us an advantage.

Our focus on the end-user in commercial and leisure environments has found its calling in today’s world of blended social, living, and work activities. We believe the built environment truly can shape our lives and therefore we strive to “blur the lines” between various activities, indoors and out; to encourage a sustainable mix of live, work, and play. This attitude has allowed us to move into the world of housing with a fresh and unique perspective. We look forward to the next 50 years, and promoting people places, as we continue to draw crowds.

New Talent to the BCT Team

left to right: Maria J. Garcia Environmental Graphic Designer, Ryan Janes Architectural Designer, Adam Chisholm Architectural Designer

This month, BCT Architects welcomes Maria J. Garcia to our Graphics Studio and welcomes back Ryan Janes and Adam Chisholm to our Architecture Studio.

Ryan Janes re-joins our team as Associate. Ryan has combined leadership, planning, and design skills for a wide range of mixed use, retail, hospitality, and residential projects in the US and internationally. Ryan’s unique design style utilizes the latest and greatest architectural software to provide our team with a modern approach to 3D design, planning, and presentation.

Adam Chisholm also re-joins our team as Associate. He has amassed a diverse and respected portfolio of award-winning work and has a great collaborative spirit while coordinating multiple roles. He has worked on mixed use, retail, and residential projects around the world implementing new and sustainable design ideas. His pursuit of the latest architectural software has expanded our firm’s capacity to communicate our ideas and provide impressive, well-coordinated architectural presentations.

Maria J. Garcia joins our team as an Environmental Graphic Designer. Skilled in a wide array of graphic services – brand development, wayfinding, event design, print and digital media – Maria enhances our graphics team’s capacity to deliver a powerful complimentary design service for our commercial, residential, hospitality and office projects. Maria’s design expertise is equally matched in her practical production experience and her passion for great design.

“We are very excited to welcome Maria, Ryan and Adam to our talented team of designers, architects, and planners,” says BCT Chairman and CEO, Bryce Turner. “It is our highest aspiration to continue to attract top talent and deliver award-winning solutions to our clients.”

Designing the Waterfront!

Our waterfront experience crosses the spectrum – from single-family custom-designed houses in Florida, to an exclusive resort on Kuta Bay in Bali, to waterfront redevelopment on Wardie Bay in Edinburgh, Scotland, and of course, the design of several waterfront mixed-use developments around our inner harbor in Baltimore. The diversity of projects, both in region and in magnitude, has given us the unique opportunity to provide developers with creative designs that are both distinctive and efficient functionally. We are not a “formula-driven” firm – rather, we strive to create designs that re-think and re-shape the old rules into innovative and bold works that are at the cutting edge of design. It is this perspective, that every project presents a fresh challenge – a new possibility – to re-shape the way we experience architecture, that is the foundation of our award-winning success.

visit BCT at ICSC Mid-Atlantic!

The Third Place is Changing

As our apartments and workspaces get smaller, our desire to be in inspiring, socially oriented, spaces increases. So urban folk, that are young at heart, have often walked to the corner cafe and rubbed elbows with like-minded people. Because this often occurs in neighborhoods or on high street retail locations, there is one major change occurring.

Retail which often embraces and defines our public spaces is changing due to online purchasing and the demise of traditional retail channels such as the department store.

Therefore public gatherings are occurring more frequently adjacent to co-working, fitness, breweries, repair shops (bike, computer, etc.) and bars, restaurants, and entertainment uses. It is not surprising that we want to be in the midst of cool stuff. But our definition of cool stuff changes occasionally over time. Currently, when relaxing, many of us like being around activities that require dexterity and skill and pique our interest. Witness the proliferation of Bicycle Repair cafes, live music, maker markets, and art studios.

We are finding ways to cram many of these uses together and making spaces that are active 16 hours a day (if not 24) and that stimulate our senses. So this means moving some workspace and co-working space to the street level. It can also mean moving the public space to upper levels... but more on that in a future post.

Coffee shops and co-working are both changing... And becoming more alike... We are seeing more interest in "membership places" such as clubs like ww.oxfordexchange.com in Tampa. Uses under one roof include a restaurant, co-working, coffee shop, event space and retail. 

These trends are impacting the built environment. National chain stores (despite their credit ratings) are shunned. Organic, granular, and authentic are the characteristics that are prevalent in the most successful destinations. These efforts are generally more easily achieved by small entrepreneurial 'developers' like Liz Dunn in Seattle. Her self-described "skinny development" focuses on historic buildings, programming, and community focused uses.

Renovation and re-use of existing buildings will continue to grow and will complement our new structures that will focus on sustainability, natural lights, plants, and especially flexibility for uses!