An international design practice with a focus on creating healthy, sustainable environments to help institutional clients increase the value they can provide to their community and to celebrate the life of their place.
Registered Architect in India and California (USA).
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Bangalore, India: +91 90084 33011
Berkeley, California, USA: +1 (510) 798-6970
brian@brianfeagans.com
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RECENT PROJECTS
THE HUB AT INVENTURE ACADEMY
Bangalore, India
ROSES IN CONCRETE COMMUNITY SCHOOL
Oakland, California
THE S.P.O.T. AT ROSES IN CONCRETE
Oakland, California
PRIMARYÂ LIBRARY AT INVENTURE ACADEMY
Bangalore, India
MAKERSPACE PROGRAM AT INVENTURE ACADEMY
Bangalore, India
ESCUELA BILINGÃœE INTERNACIONAL
Emeryville, California
WINDRUSH SCHOOL
El Cerrito, California
SUSTAINABLE SCHOOLS SURVEY
San Francisco Bay Area
YUDH - PROMOTIONAL POSTERS
Bangalore, India
The Hub at Inventure Academy
Bangalore, INDIA
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A lightweight pre-engineered building system is utilized in unexpected ways to create a series of functional, climate-responsive, and inspiring spaces for a PK-12 school in Bangalore, India.
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A simple roof structure with a 150-foot clear span provides sun and rain protection for a sports and assembly hall, stage, and three smaller studio buildings that house the arts programs.
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The use of simple forms keeps costs low and creates a clarity of expression — without added ornamentation. The repetitive patterns of steel frames, purlins, cross bracing and downspouts are fully revealed creating beauty from their necessity.
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Sun, wind, and water are leveraged to create a comfortable environment with minimal consumption of resources. Passive cooling, natural ventilation, daylight, and views of nature from every space keep occupants connected to the daily and seasonal rhythms of the place.
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With no municipal water connection and ground wells running dry, the school had to take action. For this Net Positive Water project, rainwater falling on the big roof is collected and conveyed to a holding tank where it seeps into the aquifer, restoring water security for the entire school and neighboring community.
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With power cuts occurring every day, the building was designed to be operational with or without power. This all-electric building is Net Positive Energy Ready with structural members sized to support a photovoltaic array that can power a large percentage of the campus demand.
Designed to be adaptable to change, each space supports multiple functions throughout the year. When school re-opened during Covid, dining shifted from the existing building to the naturally ventilated assembly space and the large studios can accommodate 30+ students while maintaining social distancing.
DESIGN STORY OF THE HUB
Narrated by the architect, this video tells the story of how a tree became the design parti for The Hub.
ROSES IN CONCRETE COMMUNITY SCHOOL
Oakland, CA USA
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In 2014, Brian joined a group of colleagues to start a K-8 charter school committed to social justice and equity in a historically underserved community (50% black, 50% latinx).
As a founding board member and then Facilities Chair, Brian worked at the scale of the individual, school, and community to influence conditions required to create a sustainable and healthy community for some of the most vulnerable children and families of color living in East Oakland.
ROSES IN CONCRETE COMMUNITY SCHOOLÂ - The S.P.O.T
(Students Producing Oakland's Transformation)
Oakland, CA USA
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Funded by Google, a multi-disciplinary team designed a first of its kind culturally responsive computer science/makerspace curriculum, built out a 2,000 sq ft dedicated makerspace, and developed an assessment tool to evaluate meaningful student progress.
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Two portable buildings from the 1960s, originally scheduled for demolition, were restored to create an environment where students of color could develop a love of learning and the skills needed to transform their community.
INVENTURE ACADEMY - Primary Library Renovation
Bangalore, India
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This low budget renovation project transformed a classroom-sized library for Primary School from a storage room with books to a comfortable and inspiring reading room.
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New bookshelves were arranged at the edges to create reading nooks. Amoeba-shaped tables floated in the middle. Throw rugs, bean bags, warm-colored pendant lighting, and portraits of famous authors created a new sense of comfort and inspiration that was missing in the space prior to the renovation.
INVENTURE ACADEMY - Makerspace Program and Original Makerspace Classroom
Bangalore, India
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A multi-disciplinary team worked together to design a new makerspace program at the school. Geetha Narayanan (Founder Director at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology) focused on curriculum design and creativity in curriculum development; her colleagues at Srishti, Gautham Dayal and Vanya Gautham, translated the curriculum to learning units, materials required, and furniture /equipment needs; and Brian focused on the interior design, furniture design, purchasing, and construction.
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The original Makerspace Classroom was developed on a very low budget and housed in an existing lower level multi-purpose room. The learning from this early project allowed the program to develop and grow slowly on its own, eventually leading to an expansion of the program and a move to a much larger space in the new Sports and Arts building: The Hub.
ESCUELA BILINGÃœE INTERNACIONAL - San Pablo Campus Renovation and Interiors
Emeryville, CA USA
Sr. Associate, Ratcliff Architects, Emeryville, CA USA
The design of this new campus reflects a bold vision for a lasting, flexible, and innovative learning environment that is reflective of the EBI learning experience. The project transforms a 38,000 sq ft existing industrial building and site into a high-performance learning environment. The building design includes durable and sustainable materials and energy-efficient mechanical systems to minimize operating costs and impact on the environment.
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Classrooms and break-out spaces at the building perimeter connect to an active central zone that provides flexible space for shared resources, break-out activities, private conferences, and opportunities for social interaction.
To adhere to a limited budget, we retained the industrial feel of the original building interior and performed minimal yet transformative work on the exterior that included a bold new paint color and a new entrance. Energy modeling demonstrated that spending more money on a more efficient mechanical system and keeping the existing single-pane exterior windows was the most cost-effective option long-term when considering the lifetime operational costs and first costs together when compared to the cost of replacing the exterior windows.
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WINDRUSH SCHOOL - Classroom Building
El Cerrito, CA USA
Sr. Associate, Ratcliff Architects, Emeryville, CA USA
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LEED Platinum Certification
AIA San Francisco Design Award - 2009
Best of Green Buidling Award by California Construction, 2009
Top Green Project by MyGreenPallette.com, 2010
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This innovative classroom building is one of the greenest learning spaces in Northern California, saving energy and providing a high-performance and healthy learning environment for its K-8 student population.
Taking advantage of the school’s bayside location, the building features naturally ventilated and cooled classrooms with radiant floor heat, an insulated concrete building shell, and photovoltaic panels – enabling a projected energy savings of 50% over baseline. The project was one of the first school buildings to receive the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® Platinum certification.
The building’s minimalist detailing and regular bays reflect the design of the historic main campus building, a modest concrete structure built in 1934 as the Chung-Mei Home for Boys. The new 14,000 sf addition provides seven new classrooms, a library, and lobby for an adjacent gymnasium and fulfills the School’s commitment to its community to provide a building that makes living green a tangible lesson of sustainability.
SUSTAINABLE SCHOOLS SURVEY
Independent Schools in the San Francisco Bay Area
Sr. Associate, Ratcliff Architects, Emeryville, CA USA
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In 2009, after winning an AIA-San Francisco Design Award for one of the first LEED Platinum school buildings, Brian realized how little impact one high-performing project could have on reducing the energy and resource consumption of an entire campus. To better understand this issue, he led a sustainability metrics study, comparing resource consumption patterns of independent schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Armed with data on energy, water, waste, transportation, he was able to advise clients on the environmental impact of their entire operations compared to peer schools. This study led one school to become carbon neutral and helped Brian develop expertise in complex water issues.
YUDH - Bharathanatyam Dance Theater
Promotional Posters
Creative Director and Graphic Design
Bangalore, India
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The Yudh project presented a unique design opportunity, building on Brian’s design and graphic skills, to explore the essence and culture of Bharathanatyam dance in its contemporary form. Instead of shooting the dancers in traditional Bharathanatyam poses, Brian focused on capturing the ‘life’ of the story as portrayed through dance theater.
After watching rehearsals and completing several test shoots, we decided on a few key scenes from the story that we could portray in the images. To capture the dynamic nature of the dance, most of the images were shot with the dancers in motion, constantly moving, to avoid the traditional static portraiture.
Brian worked closely with photographer Shishir Saxena, the artistic director/choreographer (and neighbor) Savitha Sastry, and the dancers Kalpana Sivan, Sukanya Ramanan, and Varsha Vishwanath from Singapore to compose the images and make the final selections. Brian was responsible for directing the shoot, post-production editing, and graphic design of the posters. The posters were created to promote the event being performed at the Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay in Singapore with support from the National Arts Council of Singapore.
BRIAN FEAGANS
Registered Architect in California (USA) and India,
AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Brian Feagans is an architect, designer and strategic facilities advisor to institutional clients in the US and India. His work focuses on creating healthy, sustainable environments that help organizations increase the value they can provide to their community.
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In 1995, prior to receiving a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, Brian explored the world on a one-year traveling fellowship from Berkeley and hasn't stopped traveling since, shifting to Bangalore with his family in 2014.
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Master of Architecture, University of California, Berkeley, 1996.
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Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988.
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