Jim Childress, FAIA, received his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1977 and 1978 respectively. Selected as one of the decade’s “40 National Architects under 40” by the Architectural League of New York, he has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and at Eidgenossiche–Techniche Hochschule in Switzerland. He is one of four partners at Centerbrook Architects and Planners in Centerbrook, Connecticut.
January 13, 2012 – 10:41 am
Albert Einstein was 26 when he published his “Special Theory of Relativity.” James D. Watson was 25 when he and Francis Crick discovered the architecture of DNA, arguably the greatest scientific achievement of our lifetime. Steve Jobs, another early bloomer, believed that you couldn’t trust people over 30 to come up with radical innovations. Working [...]
September 15, 2011 – 10:46 am
Anyone who has remodeled a bathroom, or even a broom closet, knows that building projects tend not to proceed as planned. Surprises are common, and the work can take longer and cost more than expected – if one is not vigilant. Even when the execution goes smoothly, sometimes the basic concept is flawed: for example, [...]
December 28, 2010 – 9:54 am
It was standing room only as Nobel Laureate Dr. James Watson and award winning architect William Grover, FAIA, explored their 36-year collaboration developing and improving the renowned research campus of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island. The pair’s presentation, part of the Essex Library’s Centerbrook Architects Lecture Series, drew some 200 people to the [...]
October 28, 2010 – 9:24 am
Bill Grover and Jim Watson (Nobel Laureate Dr. James D. Watson to the world at large) are not exactly the odd couple, but they clearly are distinct from one another. One is an architect, the other a scientist. One is patient; one less so. Bill is calm and speaks softly; Jim can be a bit [...]
October 18, 2010 – 1:27 pm
I never walked five miles to school in a blizzard, but I did ingest my share of character-building cafeteria food while a dyspeptic, cholesterol-ridden scholar. Remember the latex cheese on those academic burgers that clung like Crazy Glue to the bun, rather than to the patty? Or the mystery meat enclosed in Plaster of Paris [...]
August 6, 2010 – 11:51 am
Have you noticed that almost everything is now sold as “green” and sustainable? Recently I passed by a national chain outlet in Washington, D.C. sporting a large sign: “The Only Retail Store to be Completely Carbon Neutral.” I questioned the claim when I felt the air-conditioning air pouring out of the open door, and observed [...]
It was time to dust off the Ten Commandments of Architecture and hold them over my head like Charlton Heston (blessedly they were etched in Microsoft Word rather than stone). They have been passed down to me, in part, by Bill Grover, partner emeritus, and my current Centerbrook partners. I have done a bit of [...]
October 1, 2009 – 8:49 pm
For my son’s recent college project he was paired with another student, something that would have been exceedingly rare (if not unheard of) during my bright (if that is the right word) college years. We wandered lonely as a cloud, scholastically speaking. It was me against the professor, with precious little backup. But group education [...]
