As a young architect, Jay Brotman came to Connecticut in the late 1980s in search of opportunity and a job in his field amid tough times in Texas, where he had grown up. Joining New Haven-based design firm Svigals + Partners, he found opportunity and then some, rising to become the firm’s managing partner and a leading national expert on school design in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting tragedy that happened in the state in 2012.

Brotman helped design the new Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., winning accolades for a sensitive approach that marries an uplifting design with artfully interwoven security features. It has provided a national model for school design in an era of mass shootings, with the architect asked to share his expertise and insights in testimony before Congress on the issues raised.

Not as well known, however, is Brotman’s work and involvement with the redevelopment of New Haven, which may not have attracted a national spotlight but has had a dramatic impact in helping transform and revive the urban fabric of an old New England industrial city that dates to its founding by English Puritans in the mid-17th century.

布罗特曼说：“这个镇上有很多人分享将其带回过去的热情，这是一个闪亮的城市。”“您的能量来自这个城镇，我们只能尽我们所能作为建筑师来提供帮助。”

Brotman is known for mentoring younger colleagues at his firm.
Photos courtesy of Svigals + Partners

Early days in Texas

Growing up in the Dallas area, Brotman had a love of construction and design at an early age, building skyscrapers with erector sets and later, in high school, learning how to draft and sketch. He was also fascinated with the work of his father, a developer, seeing him buy and redevelop properties and buildings and observing the impact his work had on the community.

After graduating from the University of Texas, Brotman was working as an architect in the residential sector when the savings and loan sector collapsed, causing financing for new construction projects to dry up.

但是，当时的东北部仍在蓬勃发展，因此，布罗特曼（Brotman）回答了Svigals + Partners报纸广告，该公司在康涅狄格州的劳动力短缺的情况下将其招聘工作扩大到德克萨斯州。他说：“这看起来像是一个令人兴奋的工作场所，也是一个令人兴奋的地方……在这里我34年后。”
Brotman arrived in New Haven at an opportune time, with the city, its industrial base hammered, poised for a comeback.

City leaders and key local stakeholders, including Yale University, focused on the potential for the then budding life sciences sector to help fill the void.

Brotman和他的团队致力于纽黑文的重建，帮助改造和恢复了新英格兰旧工业城市的城市结构。
Photos courtesy of Svigals + Partners

Brotman和他的公司参与了耶鲁医学院研究实验室的关键重新设计和现代化，用工作凳代替了各个办公室，并创建了一个更开放和更合作的空间。

Research at Yale Medical has led to dozens of spinoff companies over the past quarter century, creating jobs and filling new lab and office buildings in the city, with Svigals + Partners going on to do work for Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Arvinas, among others.

布罗特曼（Brotman）最近还领导了设计纽黑文大学伯加米科学，技术与创新中心的团队，这是该校园中第一座新的学术大楼，并获得了新英格兰最佳项目竞赛的奖项。18luck官网新利luck

The new Bergami Center involved the renovation of the existing building and construction of an addition with a common space in between where students can study, meet up or take a break. Nicknamed “the Berg,” it is the “popular place” on campus, he notes.

Brotman also spearheaded design and construction of the 150,000-sq-ft Park Street Clinical Laboratory, which houses progressive and comprehensive laboratory and pharmaceutical services for the adjacent Smilow Cancer Hospital.

With the expansion and growth of New Haven’s life sciences cluster, Brotman and his firm are also increasingly busy now with conversions or rehabs of existing buildings into lab space.

They are involved in two significant lab conversions, one involving a switch from Class A office to labs at 55 Church St. in downtown New Haven and another for a one-time industrial building on the city’s outskirts, says Christopher Bockstael, a partner at the firm and longtime colleague who calls Brotman his mentor.

“他只是一个令人难以置信的计划者，”博克斯托尔说。“实验室规划是纽黑文和康涅狄格州最有影响力的业务部门之一，他是它的中心。当有人打电话给我并说“我想把建筑物变成一个实验室建筑物”时，我告诉他们“你必须和杰伊交谈。”他在考虑比其他人领先14个步骤。”

After helping design the new Sandy Hook Elementary School, which marries an uplifting design with artfully interwoven security features, Brotman testified before Congress on the issue of school design and safety.
Photo courtesy C-Span

Brotman’s impact also extends to school design, both in New Haven and across the country as well.

His arrival at Svigals + Partners coincided with a push by New Haven to renovate and rebuild all the schools in its system. It launched a partnership with the city that would span 25 years, with Brotman, company founder Barry Svigals and the design firm landing work in a school revival campaign that has seen almost every school in New Haven renovated or completely rebuilt.

Brotman and the firm also created a bottom-up neighborhood review process— the School Based Building Advisory Committee, which is made up of teachers, students and parents. It has become the model for school design going forward,

“The approach built neighborhood excitement and vision,” he says.

纽黑文学校的工作还为布罗特曼（Brotman）准备了他迄今为止最著名，可能最具挑战性的项目，设计了新的桑迪胡克学校（Sandy Hook School），以取代一名入侵者谋杀了20名一年级学生和六名成年人后，替换了这座建筑物。

学校官员在的情况下,父母一个d other stakeholders, Brotman and his colleagues did not just stand up and dryly present a series of proposals. At the time, he says, the focus of discussion in the community “was how big a wall we could build around the school, without thinking about the repercussions.”

相反，布罗特曼说他传达的信息大不相同。他回忆说：“我们告诉他们我们不知道该怎么办，但是我们知道如何向您学习。”

有了这一声明，Brotman和Svigals + Partners将过程翻转了。设计团队与55名成员的小镇小组委员会合作，重新关注了为学生制定最佳学校学习环境计划的关注。

布罗特曼（Brotman）与康涅狄格州纽敦市（Newtown）社区紧密合作，以最敏感的方式设计新的桑迪胡克学校（Sandy Hook School）。
Photos courtesy of Svigals + Partners

“We are going to make it safe; let’s talk about what is the best plan for our children to learn,” he says. “The community was right on board with this.”
Brotman和Svigals + Partners继续设计了新的Sandy Hook学校，并具有一系列美学上令人愉悦的功能，这些功能也将其作为微妙的安全固定装置。带有高窗户的教室不仅充满了光线，还可以提供清晰的视线。

该设计还包括沿学校前部的山地桥和一个雨花园。这座长400英尺的生物厂过滤器，带有河石和植物，从屋顶漏水到湿地，靠近学校。这些元素不仅很漂亮，而且还为学校提供了缓冲，并沿特定途径进行通道通道。

布罗特曼说：“您没有盖墙，而是把窗户放在街上，让人们注视着街道。”也有隐藏的大门可以保护该物业，以及似乎是传统的新英格兰石墙，但实际上是铸造式构造的块，它们用作周边围栏。

Brotman’s work on the Sandy Hook School design led to national attention when he testified in 2018 before Congress on school design and safety. He also helped launch a national database to share strategies to boost school safety and security, and the firm has represented the American Institute of Architects on the President’s Commission on School Safety.

Brotman also shares his expertise broadly inside the firm, mentoring younger colleagues and keeping things on an even keel, Bockstael says.

“最大的东西是隐藏在great architecture is the sense of compassion, not just for the people he is working for and with, but also for the internal family, the people he is working with here,” he says of Brotman.