What we do:

As a group of design professionals and skilled makers, we approach client collaboration with a comprehensive understanding of the built environment. Our iterative approach to designing and making allows us to experiment with materials and methods as a means to further develop our approach to design thinking.

As an architecture firm, we provide residential and commercial architecture services. We carefully balance a comprehensive set of criteria in the creation of contextually specific architectural forms and spaces. Solar geometry, prevailing winds, and climate influence the way we think about site selection, building forms, and wall openings. We work with local materials and learn from the expertise of area trades professionals. We also carefully integrate sustainable and ecological design strategies throughout the design and building processes.

As a design-build group, we make homes, public art, architectural details, furniture, and small structures. We specialize in the use of advanced computational and digital design tools to generate problem-specific solutions. We are skilled with both analog and digital fabrication tools, and we work with an extensive network of highly skilled and well-equipped subcontractors and fabrication shops.  

Lucas Brown, AIA

Lucas Brown has been working in the field for nearly 30 years. His career began as a carpenter building custom homes with his family’s construction company in Southern Indiana. After he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture, he worked with the Austin-based sustainable design nonprofit CMPBS (the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems). Among other projects at CMPBS, he played a role in designing and building one of the first Solar Decathlon homes with the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture. While living in Austin, he worked with contemporary furniture designer Mark Macek and award winning architect Murray Legge, FAIA. At Green Mountain College, he co-created and directed the Renewable Energy and Ecological Design program, where his courses focused on design, sustainability, and design-build. His student projects have earned design awards and have been published internationally. He is now the founding principal of Brownsmith Studios, LLC. and teaches architecture courses at the Indiana University School of Art, Architecture, and Design.

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