Mary Brush, FAIA
Principal
Career History
- Brush Architects, LLC – Founder and Principal
- Holabird & Root – Preservation and Building Envelope Group Leader
- Klein and Hoffman, Inc. – Director of Preservation
- Thornton Tomasetti/LZA Technology – Senior Project Director
- Mayer Jeffers Gillespie – Architect
Affiliations & Awards
- AIA Fellowship (2016)
- Richard Morris Hunt Fellowship (2005)
- AIA Illinois – President (2013)
- AIA Illinois – President AIA Illinois Board of Directors (2012)
- AIA – Member (Current)
- AIA Illinois – Member (Current)
- AIA Chicago – Member (Current)
Education
- University of Pennsylvania – MSHP, Historic Preservation
- University of Illinois at Chicago – MArch
- Hobart and William Smith Colleges – BA, Architecture
About the Firm
Brush Architects is a high-profile flexible model practice that balances innovative existing building investigation and technology with historic preservation protocol.
Our firm specializes in blending the processes of technical building investigation and historic preservation to solve challenges of any existing building – modern curtain walls to historic masonry, metal cladding systems to historic wall papers. We work as prime or as consultants to design firms throughout North America.
We have found success as both the prime architect for the client and as a team member consulting to design firms. We focus on the existing building and original building components so that the design team enhances the intervention. Our existing building original constructions range from 1860 to 2008 for successful investigation, assessment, rehabilitation, and restoration.
Exceptional Effort
Mary Brush has been a pioneer in the inspection, design and restoration of the facades of buildings accessed by swing stage and industrial rope systems. When Mary began rappelling down buildings in 1998, an architect would rarely be considered for such tasks that were typically within the realm of engineers and contractors. Her hands-on investigation enables the discovery of material behavior patterns in order to build sympathetic design solutions. Whether it is rappelling down towers to investigate clock face welds, assessing statue anchorages on tower offsets or walking theater coves to diagnose falling plaster, Mary and the Brush Architect’s team goes where architects are needed to discern building dynamics to provide architectural solutions that are complimented by engineering and material expertise.
Technical Expertise
Mary has over 23 years of experience with building envelope investigation and restoration as well as interior/exterior historic preservation, research, design and construction services. Her talents include critical and on-going facade reports, drawings development, bidding and construction management, technical specifications and architectural construction services. Her hands-on approach from investigation through construction observation is integral to the success of her projects.
International Recognition
In 2016 Mary was elevated into the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows. The FAIA title is provided to less than 2% of worldwide members of the AIA.
Mary’s accomplishments in the field of historic preservation have been recognized by the international juries of the American Architecture Foundation and the French Heritage Society (Societe des Vielles Maisons Francaises). She was awarded the Richard Morris Hunt (RMH) Fellowship in 2005. The RMH Fellowship recognizes one American architect every two years and provides the opportunity to spend six months working with elite preservation architects throughout France. She has published several articles based on the innovative techniques she learned and has applied them to projects with unqualified success.