Brian Manning's First Project: Big Flats Town Hall

Brian Manning started working with Teitsch-Kent-Fay Architects, P.C. on November 3, 2003. As he began assisting our team we quickly learned that Brian was very skilled at paying attention to details needed for code reviews and ensuring that designs had the proper safety features. This is an incredibly helpful skill because it helps us to not miss small safety requirements in our designs.

One of the first project’s Brian was helped our team with were the designs for the Town of Big Flats. This project was a multi-phase endeavor that included the creation of a new community center, reconstruction and major addition to the town hall, and expansion of the Department of Public Works Facility. Given our knowledge of Brian’s skills with safety requirements, we knew his expertise would be best utilized on the town hall addition.

The existing town hall was a series of offices that had been haphazardly developed over the years. The departments within the building were not clearly defined and many functions were mixed or shared. On top of all of this, the town court functions were being served out of an old conference room within the town hall. This lacked support spaces such as judge’s chambers, attorney meeting spaces, and law enforcement office facilities.

To solve this problem our team was tasked with redesigning the current town hall and a new addition that would house the town court functions. Brian and Bob Kent, then president of TKF, developed a new atrium space, placed between the existing building and the new courtroom. This atrium provided a link between the old and new buildings, and was designed with a large volume tower element that marked the new accessible entrance for the building. By creating the new entrance as a hyphen between the town hall and the court facility either space can be opened separately without having to open the entire building. Since the town hall is used during the day and the court facility is often used at night, this new design allows each space to be operated independent of the other.

All public buildings are required to have emergency detection equipment to ensure that the occupants are protected. These features include smoke and fire detection and emergency lighting systems. Typically, these systems can be unsightly in a new space. However, Brian was able to make a design where these safety requirements were incorporated into the soffits. This made the safety requirements almost unnoticeable as to not take away from the rest of the space.

The resulting facility allows each of the Town’s departments to have their own distinct areas of operation, while still allowing each to access the common spaces such as the mailroom, copy facility, break room, or infrastructural facilities. The new courtroom is in line with the local and state requirements for such a facility, and provides a greatly expanded facility over the previously shared multi-function space.