As a small business there is always the many hats rule – each person does a lot of things and wears many hats. I am thrilled to have Matty join our team here in Harrisonburg and immediately she is wearing multiple hats. She will be our new office manager, picking up where Jamara left off and will also join Charles in the marketing efforts for the firm. Matty brings a wide range of talents to the team and I am so excited to introduce her to our clients, friends, and supporters! Please take a minute and reach out to welcome her to Harrisonburg and the Gaines Group Architects team.
Madison (Matty) Tesch was born and raised in Findlay, Ohio, and later attended Bowling Green State University (BGSU) to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design. Between attending design club meetings and working as a marketing intern she spent her free time kickboxing at the local gym. Through college she experimented with several jobs from operating room assistant to window curator- she decided marketing was more her thing. Towards the end of college, she reconnected with her 3rd-grade boyfriend, they threw a dart at a map and landed on Harrisonburg, Virginia as the location for their first move.
After graduating from BGSU (https://www.bgsu.edu/) in 2020 she continued her internship through the pandemic where she gained knowledge on just how crucial effective marketing can be. In May of 2021, she moved to Harrisonburg with her now-husband / 3rd-grade boyfriend and spends her days baking pastries, and studying different kinds of marketing strategies and design trends.
Matty is eager to support the Gaines Group Architects team with her expertise in graphic design, office management, and client happiness.
So yesterday I posted the start of this series, catch up HERE.
Design has power.
Most homes in the United States are not designed. What I mean by that is to design a home you need to know the occupants, their dreams, habits, customs, and way of life and then develop a design to facilitate future goals. You also need to know the site, slope, climate, weather patterns, and even typical soil composition to “design” a house. Most houses are simply built and we (big we meaning society as a whole) have accepted that to the point where we adapt our living habits to the house not designed to facilitate the lifestyle we want to live as normal. Public buildings on the other hand are almost always designed for a specific use, group of people, and location (I wish more of them took into account climate and environmental impacts).
When we look at the making of a “place” all the buildings, streets, sidewalks, bike lanes, stormwater management, even porches, and fences have impacts. A residential community with no sidewalks or front porches and instead large rear yards and decks struggle to build community. A residential community with sidewalks and deep front porches tend to introduce neighbors to each other. This is a powerful tool in design.
In non-residential design, a building can also help create community. Think about how you feel sitting in the windows at Billy Jacks on a nice day when they open up the windows vs a hot day with closed windows. Another example is how Harrisonburg’s downtown feels with sidewalks and storefronts (the majority of parking in a deck) vs how East Market St. feels in the area of the mall where there are sidewalks, but parking lots are in front of buildings and there is a lot more traffic. All of these examples create a sense of place, but which builds belonging and a pride of place for you? Which is welcoming for you?
As we think about where to put our design energy for the future of our city we need to decide if we want to celebrate the unique aspects of our town or the chain restaurant any town USA part of our town. Building pride of place requires that people feel like they belong, are welcome, and have a purpose.
What does it mean to have pride of place for your community? How can we continue building community? How can we be resilient and healthy as a community?
My thesis project in graduate school focused on the power of architecture to create a sense of place. My theory is that you have to know a place – people, culture, and climate – to be able to design effective structures that build place (or community). The more we become a place that looks like every other place (strip architecture filled with chain businesses and signs geared towards driving in a car) the less resilient we become. The more we celebrate what is unique to us the stronger we are as a community. Design can build a sense of place and that sense of place has huge power over how the community exists.
Community can mean many things depending on context. You could be a community of people that all attend the same school, live in a specific neighborhood, or cheer for the same team. Community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area or virtual space through communication platforms.
I am going to focus a series of blogs on community in the form of a geographic area. As we seem to focus more and more on our differences, I want to explore a bit of how design building sense of place can bring us back together. Stay tuned for more.
Charles Hendricks, AIA, CSI, CDT, CAPS, CGP, LEED AP BD&C Named As A Top Expert in the Construction Industry In 2021
The annual list of the FIXR 2021 Top 200 Experts in the Construction Industry, compiled and presented byFixr.com, has just been released. The prestigious list recognizes innovative construction professionals, who take pride in their excellent work and contributions to the industry. Fixr.com assembles this exclusive list by using a rigorous methodology, based on expertise, depth of knowledge, and driving progression in the industry. Fixr.com has employed this methodology to analyze each expert’s high level of experience, successful projects, and esteemed reputations at local, state, and national levels.
Making the FIXR 2021 top 200 construction professionals means experts’ status and prestige within the construction industry is recognized, as industry analyst Cristina Miguélez points out: “Being included in this list is not only an expression of their past professional accomplishments but also shows how each expert continues to shape the future of construction by adapting to the ever-changing industry.”
By gaining exclusive inclusion in the list, Fixr.com confirms that Charles Hendricks has shown strong leadership and expertise within the home construction industry. What’s more, Charles Hendricks’ continued innovation aids the growth and adaptation of construction methods and trends throughout 2021.
About Charles Hendricks
Charles Hendricks is an architect, father, and Rotarian. His firm, Gaines Group Architects, which he owns along with Raymond E. Gaines, and Roger Bryant has offices in Charlottesville and Harrisonburg, Virginia. With a specialty in sustainable design, the firm serves clients in a wide range of sectors from custom residential, residential renovation and additions, historic renovation, interior design, office, multi-family, industrial, private schools, ecclesiastical, daycares, retail, and restaurant. Charles’ favorite projects are those that build a stronger community through the use of design and a focus on holistic thinking. Charles has been included in the FIXR Top 200 list since 2017.
About Fixr.com
Fixr.com is a home improvement resource specialist with the mission of helping homeowners make better home remodeling decisions. Fixr.com is unrivaled when it comes to providing unbiased, thorough, and updated cost guides, price comparisons, and cheat sheets for hundreds of remodeling, installation, and repair projects. When the homeowner is equipped with the necessary knowledge, Fixr.com connects homeowners with the best-matched contractors in their area to begin their home improvement projects.
I have organized ZOOM networking sessions for a year now and they have attracted people from across the country. I hope you can make it to this month’s event as we welcome Juan Coronel with Free Agent PDX based in Portland, Oregon. Juan’s presentation, Business Development for you and your company, will tell the story of why he chose sales as a career and how that choice leads to his success. Joan has more than 12 years of experience working in sales and business development. In his free time, he volunteers with multiple associations around the construction industry.
In this session, you will hear about some of the challenges he has had to face and how he persevered through them. This presentation will also explain how his unorthodox approach to business has allowed him to grow his career as well as the companies he has worked for. Construction is incredibly complex and it takes a team to build a building. He says mistakes are only mistakes if you don’t learn from them, so stay humble, growth is the essence of life.
Juan has two children, a 19-year-old daughter, and a 16-year-old son. He has two dogs and owns multiple house plants. Trail running and producing videos are a couple of hobbies. Here is a link to his YouTube if you are interested.
