Interview with Train Architects

Train Architects is a 6-person architectural design firm located in Charlottesville, Virginia. We practice on a regional scale, focused on general architectural design in Institutional, Commercial and Residential work.

Problem solving with beautiful, elegant solutions.

Anything, I like the process of creating.

The Rice Rivers Center, Charles City County, Virginia for Virginia Commonwealth University. Part of it is built, the second part is in funding and hopefully we will be able to complete it all in the next few years.

A House for the first architecture firm I worked for, while an undergrad.

Cherry Wood, beautiful grain, warm tones; contrasts but enhances steel, brick or concrete – honest simple materials.

The very first thoughts generally hold the boldest, biggest and best ideas. The remainder of the process is to refine the design and reinforce and support those ideas to meet the exigencies of site, program and budget.

Plan generation with implied section relating to thoughts about mass.

Content, intellectually stimulated, energized.

I am ambiguous about this. My image of the project is embodied in my design drawings, that vision is not always carried through on site and built well. Rarely does the finished project fully embodied the quality of the thought. This is the product of a small practice in a small town.

Balance, proportion, rhythm and scale – timeless qualities we have all used to judge buildings by.

Is the image interesting and supported by a clear and rigorous and evident thought process.

More Environmental than social. As the built environment consumes almost half of America’s energy usage, we can through better design work to reduce that consumption of energy; through the use of better materials and processes associated with those materials, we can reduce waste and byproducts harmful to the environment. We can have an impact.

Computers and material research and therefore material options are pushing design and design possibilities in an almost revolutionary way, one that reminds me of Mies van der Rohe’s Glass Tower project. The new work is interesting and in itself beautiful. It remains to be seen how it always reacts to context and makes cities better.

Retrospective: Student Work from the Studios of James Stirling
School of Architecture, Yale University, 2010.

We live life as visual sponges. There are so many images, so many things and places that we encounter, you would have to be ignorant or just dumb to miss them all. Big things and little things can feed into your design thoughts, but in architecture, they all run through the sieve of context, client, site and budget.

Contextual. Designs are a response to program site and client. We do not think of a style but you can see constant themes run through any of our projects. They can all look different, but how they go together, and the rigor of thought ties them together. Each project is designed in an organic manner, with all parts relating and supportive to the design concept or thought. This tight relationship is always part of the beauty of a work.

Charlottesville, Virginia USA; Design is not culturally supported in America as much as other countries. We are somewhat of a disposable country when it comes to the general practice of architecture and construction. Yes we have beautiful buildings and beautiful urban places but the overwhelming amount of construction in this country does not use an architect or does not approach its construction from a design point of view; it is approached only for what is cheap and minimal.

Most of our work is with Universities or individuals, when a company entity is involved, it is still with an individual.

They should understand if they like you or the work you do and if so, give you their thoughts and let you design to meet their stated criteria or need.

Mine is an iterative process that starts with notions or thoughts reacting to the site and program. A clearly delineated concept and diagrams support the follow-on decisions of image.

Le Corbusier LC-2 Chairs; Mont Blanc Meisterstruck Fountain pen (Not really modern); Many, Many books; PH 4 ½-3 ½ Glass Table Lamps by Paul Henningsen for Louis Poulsen; iPad/iPhone.

No one is the same.

Be a better marketer, entrepreneur. All the talent in the world does not get work without it.

Beautiful to be able to create something that did not exist; Having to convince others that is what it should be.

Able to see your work three-dimensionally in your head.

Red pencil for sketching, red pencil for correcting.

Complete focus when designing, everything else gets set aside.

Buildings can take months even when small just to create the designer, the contract documents and construction can be years. It is a profession of slow realization.

"What do you think?"

How to work with my office team and read an accounting spreadsheet.

they are all types of people and institutions.

Houses as they are personal.

Continue to work, that is a good future.

I work in a team, but I am the designer.

Nothing in particular, we are busy on a lot of small University projects, waiting on other larger ones to fund and start.

ktrain@trainarchitects.com

This alone has worn me out, probably did the same to whomever read it.