PROVIDENCE BUSINESS NEWS - OCTOBER 4 -10, 2010

Designs that mix the traditional and contemporary

BY DENISE PERREAULT

Don’t be deceived by Mary Dorsey Brewster’s soft-spoken, serene demeanor. She is a force to be reckoned with. She started her own business, a thriving architectural firm with nine employees now located in the former Jewelry District of Providence, some 20 years ago, when it was still something of a novelty for a woman to take on such a challenge.

Before that, in another endeavor dominated by men, she worked as a carpenter and ran her own carpentry/construction business, building additions and decks.

She already had a bachelor’s degree in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, but found she so loved residential design that she decided to go back to RISD for a second bachelor’s degree, in the five-year architectural program. It’s an arduous process to become a licensed architect, requiring a three-year internship on top of the five-year degree, as well as taking a rigorous written examination.

Brewster today is glad she did it. “I’ve always been a hands-on person,” she said, “and architecture combines the head and the hands in a way that is constantly challenging because you have to keep up with the evolution of materials and the science of building.”

 Her firm, Brewster Thornton Group Architects LLP, is located in a renovated 1905 factory on Chestnut Street in the heart of the old Jewelry District, in a sprawling office with creaky wooden floors, brick walls and tall windows.

There are no private offices or cubicles. The space is wide open, with individual work spaces separated by waist-high cabinets and bookcases, but few walls. Even from the back of the office, where the conference room and library are located, you can sometimes hear what’s going on in the front area of the office.

And that is exactly how Brewster planned it.

When she started the business, she was careful to bring in accomplished partners who could bring their own experiences to the mix for a “studio approach,” she said. “We work as a team.” In an office without cubicles, you can hear what others are working on and sometimes a listener can intervene with helpful information so “we get to take advantage of everybody’s experience,” Brewster said.

She opened her firm in 1989 in her Warwick home, moving the business to Providence about 10 years ago. She wanted to have her own company because “I wanted to practice architecture in a way that paid attention to people and details. I wanted a place to make great architecture and have fun doing it,” she said.

She specializes in residential design, although the firm also does renovation work, commercial projects and has carried out assignments for such institutions as Brown University and the University of Rhode Island.

The company is currently engaged in renovating the Edwards Auditorium at URI where murals dating from the Great Depression recently were uncovered behind the walls. Another recent project was the design of a fire/rescue station for the town of Bristol, a brick and glass edifice that combines the old and the new with a traditional tower, contemporary windows and a modern-looking outdoor patio.

What’s most important is to make sure the firm has a mix of projects – residential, commercial and institutional, large and small – so the business can “roll with the punches” to keep the workload steady as trends come and go because, Brewster said, “this is a very cyclical industry.” For instance, residential construction was all the rage before the recession, but now the number of homes being built has dropped dramatically and institutional work is growing in prominence, she noted.

Brewster Thornton Group Associates, like most other businesses, did not escape the pain of the recession. Brewster said she felt “terrible” when she was forced in the fall of 2008 to lay off an employee and keep another position vacant, but the firm has since brought on new employees and her “core” staff, she noted, remains intact. 

“I can recall some tough years in the past,” she said of the recession, “but nothing that has been this hard.” The key, she said, is to anticipate the cycles.

Brewster works intensively with each client to determine what it is they envision for the project and, when designing a home, she wants to make sure she can provide a proposal that reflects the choices and lifestyle of the individual client.

“I work with each client to provide a unique, particular response to them and their building project, rather than create a similar response over and over again,” she said, so each home she designs is different.

In general, she agreed, her designs mix the traditional with the contemporary, but always with an eye to what the client wants. “A home’s most important role is to pull a family closer together through the design’s thoughtful functionality and delightful individuality,” she told the authors of “Perspectives on Design New England.”

The lavishly illustrated 2010 coffee-table book, published by Panache Partners LLC in Texas, features several homes Brewster Designed.

A key element of Brewster’s business is ongoing education because so much can change so quickly. She sets aside funds in her operating budget to pay for workshops and classes for her employees, including herself and her two partners.

“There’s more complexity to architecture today. You have to be aware of a lot more,” she said, citing as an example the many safety codes that cover virtually every aspect of construction. “A lot of our work is creating beauty where you do see it,” she said, “but there is a lot of function and a lot of science that you need where you don’t see it.”