Joseph Brouwer

Joe is a recent graduate of Roger Williams University and holds a Bachelors of Science in Architecture and a Minor in Visual Arts. From an early age he had a strong talent in art and always enjoyed math and science so it was the obvious choice that he should pursue architecture as his profession. His earliest exposure to the architecture world was in high school where he took 2 years of Revit classes as well as doing a summer program at RWU for month.

During college at RWU he spent a semester abroad in Italy where he traveled all over the country seeing different kinds of architecture, as well as spending a week in the Netherlands where he traveled to several different towns discovering even more kinds architectural designs. Also while in college he worked for the Community Partnership Center where he obtained even more in the field experience.

Now out of college, his current plan is to take a few years off from school before going back to get his Masters in Architecture in order to be one step closer to obtaining his Architectural License. During this break from school he will be gaining many hours of experience in the field and wants to get his LEED Associate certification.

What is the most important tool of your trade, and why?

Having a good mind that can visualize the project you are working on would be the most important tool for this trade because if you can’t envision design or aesthetic issues with the project your are working on, the process will take longer and it would be near impossible to create a well functioning and visually pleasing building.

Describe your dream project.

Designing a medium to large sized shipping container building would be my dream project because the ability to create many different types of design out of a fixed size and shape would be a fun challenge in addition to the fact that it would be like playing with giant Legos. I also enjoy the fact that it would help reuse many of the containers for a better purpose than just having them sit in a port forever.

What inspires you most about your field?

What most inspires me about the field of architecture is being able to design and create buildings and watch the entire process from on paper to real life. I find it rewarding and inspiring that we are able to take ideas that were just in our heads not too long ago and have them manifest into the real world for us to interact with and enjoy.