Architect Sculpts Transformative Designs

by Jonathan McGaha | July 31, 2016 12:00 am

Focus on materials, fabrication contributes to memorable buildings

Will Bruder, FAIA, president, lead design architect at Will Bruder Architects LLC[1] in Phoenix, wants people to experience his designs the same way they would artwork. “We get caught up in the very ordinary, the very mundane,” Bruder says. “I’m interested in creating architecture that wakes up all your senses, excites you like a beautiful painting or a wonderful piece of music, great play or great book. By experiencing it, you see the world from a different perspective.”

Bruder describes the goal of his designs as giving people transformative, memorable experiences. “Isn’t it interesting when you go to movies sometimes, you go with expectations and you come out with an experience that you never dreamed of?” Bruder says. “And you end up talking about it, and it influences how you think about things, how you see the world the next day. It took you someplace that wasn’t only an intellectual journey, it was about your senses and everything that you know in life coming together. I want to create architecture that leaves memories like that for people.”

Material Respect

Bruder’s vision for architecture developed from his training. The Milwaukee native’s studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee led to a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in sculpture and minor in engineering. The university did not have an architecture school at the time. “With my design studies and all of my courses, whether it was stone carving or bronze casting or welding, all of those things were about this direct path from my brain to my heart to my hand,” Bruder says. “And the connection of those three elements is at the base of all my work.”

For more than four decades, and across the U.S., Bruder has designed hundreds of projects, given lectures and taught at colleges and universities. He says the buildings he designs are about people, functionality and poetic ideas. “I have a certain attitude and respect for what materials are, their essences,” Bruder says. “Materiality is essential to how I conceive, design and make buildings.”

Bruder says he is interested in looking for new ways to fabricate ordinary, traditional materials. “I want to take it in directions that change how we think about that material and how it can become more beautiful than it ever was,” he says.

Photo: Bill Timmerman

Reading Light

Bruder designed a number of libraries, including Burton Barr Central Library in Phoenix, completed in 1995, and Billings Public Library, Billings, Mont., completed in 2015. Daylighting played a significant role in both designs. Bruder consulted with London- based Arup Group Ltd., the building systems engineer for the Burton Barr Central Library project, to design a reading room larger than a football field at the top of the building. The reading room has 6-inch-wide, 300-foot-long skylights at the east and west edges. Additionally, blue, circular skylights were installed above sculptural concrete columns. “The roof, secured by a complex tensegrity design, appears to float,” Bruder says.

A ribbed, perforated, stainless steel scrim completely clads the LEED Platinum-certified Billings Public Library and provides views of rim rocks that surround the city. “It is a pavilion of contemplation, connectivity and community pride,” Bruder says. “If you just go there to read a book, that book is different because you are sitting in this beautiful building; and it works. That’s what architecture is; it’s balance between pragmatism and poetry.”

Photo: Bill Timmerman

Resourceful Invention

Bruder says copper was the most appropriate cladding material for Burton Barr Central Library because Arizona is well-known for its copper deposits. “This library was a foundational and premier cultural building in Phoenix, but it needed to be built on a very tight budget. So I went with my background of being an artist and being a sculptor and thinking, how do I do this?”

Bruder remembered seeing cylindrical, corrugated, galvanized steel grain elevators at Hayden Mill in Tempe, Ariz. The grain elevators were a standard product from Columbus, Neb.-based Behlen Manufacturing Co.[2] “So I called them to see if they would make my curved, copper panels and what it would cost,” Bruder says.

Sample panels were successfully executed and, in the end, Bruder’s collaboration with Behlen Manufacturing to form copper rainscreen panels for two sides of the library resulted in a cost reduction that made the material financially viable. “And that is because I knew the material, I knew what I wanted to do, I knew what technology could be used to make those things,” Bruder says. “The building is just full of these inventions.”

Photo: Bill Timmerman

For the overall form of Burton Barr Central Library, Bruder took a cue from nearby geologic formations. “It appears as a metaphorical mesa on the skyline,” Bruder says. “That’s me thinking like a sculptor, while looking for a narrative that deeply resonates with the time and place of this particular building.”

Whether it’s a library, school, museum, house or other structure, Bruder remains inspired by his next project. “My goal is to create a building that someone wanders into, stands in the silence and hears the beauty of the light,” Bruder says.

Arch Connect

What type of music do you listen to?

I listen to a variety. Right now I’m listening to Brian Eno, an experimental composer and arranger, the album Discreet Music. I enjoy jazz, classical and rock and roll. But this music I’m listening to right now, it’s sublime. It fits in this whole idea of creating an ambience of awareness.

What do you do on weekends?

I like to change the pace of life by seeking out beauty in a place, museum, gallery, park, movie or book.

Where is your favorite place to vacation?

My favorite place to vacation is a city I’ve never been to, because I’m a curious person and I want to discover how the world works and how people live in it.

Which historical figure would you like to have dinner with and why?

Carlo Scarpa. His work always speaks to me and excites me. He took classic materials and making methods and put them in the service of contemporary, 20th century architecture. I’d like to learn his passions and interests.

What is an important piece of advice you received as an architect?

Always be a good listener.

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/articles/architect-sculpts-transformative-designs/

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