What influenced your design principles and style?
Hope: I was partly raised by a Finnish family in Upstate New York who lived a very Scandinavian lifestyle. I fell in love with the “clean” sensibility of their IKEA napkins, Marimekko tablecloths and Iittala glassware. Then I visited Finland and fell madly in love with the interior design and architecture: an emphasis on simplicity, natural materials, and home comforts. It’s still one of my deepest influences today.
Richard: I spent five years designing and building a Buddhist temple. This time enhanced my understanding of materials and how buildings can be crafted. Also, through the years, I was fortunate to have been mentored by some extraordinary architects.
Your firm is well known for both custom residential and winery design. Does one area of design inform the other?
Wineries, especially tasting rooms, are like homes in that they are often deeply personal pursuits for owners, which requires careful listening on our part to make sure our designs reflect not only the need for workday efficiencies, but also those deep expectations and desires. Internally, we talk about this as the need to balance the sacred and the profane…in other words…inspiration and function.
Can you describe an evolution in your work from when you began until today?
Hope: We strive to evolve with the world around us; to new materials, technologies and regulations; to the challenges of climate change and growth. Imagine how much has changed since Richard started the firm in 1989! Originally, he focused on residential, commercial and sacred spaces. When I joined in 2014, we focused more on winery design. I became the firm’s full owner three years ago, and we carry forward those specialties, also solidifying another in-house specialty: interior design, making our projects even more cohesive.
Richard: What united our work over the years, and continues under Hope’s leadership, is our shared design goals. Every project differs, but extraordinary things can come from uniting our visions with our clients’ passions, and joining these with thoughtfully made spaces and combinations of materials.
Many of your firm’s projects incorporate sustainable, energy efficient features and include adaptive reuse. What innovative ideas are you most looking forward to achieving with the advance of technology?
We incorporate new sustainable technologies, whenever appropriate, but in our experience the most successful sustainable designs are simple, passive, and have the people who use them at their center - systems for gathering water or stack systems for passive cooling: techniques used for hundreds of years that operate without a lot of fuss or maintenance. Also, the most sustainable buildings are those that will still be around in 150 years, which is one reason we design with beauty in mind, and why we love doing renovations.
Telford + Brown Studio has received several awards and recognition from the American Institute of Architects. Are there any that stand out in your career?
Two projects come to mind: the Catherine McAuley Chapel, which received both national and local AIA recognition, and our Belluschi-Reisler House addition, which received an AIA design award and was recently featured by the Architectural Foundation of Oregon and The Oregonian. It was an awesome responsibility to modify and add to this beautiful house designed by Pietro Belluschi, one of Oregon’s most celebrated architects.
What’s on your radar?
Hope: We just moved into our beautiful new office space on NE Alberta Street (which we absolutely love!). Now that we’re settled in, I want to continue deepening our work on wineries, homes, and sacred spaces. Within our design team, we’ve gained substantial expertise in hospitality spaces such as restaurants, and we’d love to work in that area as well. Also – this is a personal dream – I’d like for us to design a line of textiles and/or dishware.
Richard: After a life with a single focus on architecture, I am looking for ways to make more of a contribution to my community.
For more information visit: www.telfordbrownstudio.com
