DECEMBER 2015 \ BUILDING DIALOGUE \
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\ Brad Tomecek: Exploring Space \
“how to build” every job by studying a wide variety of options
opens every predesign conversation, Tomecek says.
As the firm’s recent AIA Colorado innovation award sug-
gests, TSA is broadly open-minded about new construction
technology and eagerly applies it when it’s a solid fit with
project and client needs.
“There hasn’t been any real evolution in construction
technology in the last 200 years,” Tomecek notes. “Yet other
industries have rapidly adopted fabrication technologies
that the architecture and construction fields have been
averse to exploring.”
In what Tomecek called TSA’s “own little revolution,”
the firm has delved into creating built works using mod-
ular prefabrication with structural insulated panels, ship-
ping containers, wood-frame modular boxes and German
eco-panels. Tomecek’s own home, nestled on a 40-foot-
wide Highlands lot, consists of two giant stacked boxes that
were fabricated in North Denver in about three weeks and
craned into place over the foundation in some four hours.
It’s a LEED certified “stack-slide-stitch” home.
However, Tomecek said new construction technologies
must be assessed, like any other, against project objectives.
He receives almost daily inquiries from potential clients
who want prefabricated buildings, but it may or may not
be the best solution. For example, Tomecek said he actively
counseled against one client’s plan to build a house from
22 shipping containers, due to the astronomical expense of
converting them to the client’s vision.
“We aren’t looking to push any specific strategy but to
marry the right strategy with unique sites and client goals,”
Tomecek stresses.
As an example from the opposite end of the technolo-
gy spectrum, Tomecek led his University of Colorado ar-
chitecture students in a design-build project created with
donated, recycled and salvaged materials, such as crushed
runway concrete from the old Lowry Air Force Base.
The project allowed Tomecek to engage students in the
potential and practicality of sustainable design, which he
believes is his industry’s occupational duty to champion.
“Architects and design professionals bear a great re-
sponsibility to the earth and future generations for the
sustainable design of new and rehabilitated buildings,” he
explains.
As for TSA’s most significant work to date? Each space
has its own distinctions, Tomecek says.
“Our most significant projects come in different shapes
and sizes, be it a residence designed solely for how light
enters the dwelling during the day, to a custom-designed
mountain home, to a prefab systems study we’re working
on now with Wyndham Resorts,” he noted.
When asked his opinion on how Denver’s current thriv-
ing economy and concurrent building boom might ulti-
mately influence the city’s built environment, Tomecek is
thoughtfully optimistic.
“In the last 20 years, Denver has taken steps to make sure
that architecturally significant projects have been realized.
I hope that, as a city, we do not rest on our laurels. Given
the current construction boom, the jury is still out.”
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