Bruce Owensby, Architect

Review by Norman Ferkingstad, Dimensional Services, LLC. (contractor) As a general contractor in the Seattle area, I have enjoyed working with Bruce for over 15 years on numerous residential projects. During this time I have recommended Bruce to several clients. Their experience has been 100% positive. Bruce goes out of his way to always makes himself available. He is a true professional and he charges a fair price. Bruce’s easy and friendly style makes it easy to communicate with him. He is very creative architect and his plans are consistently accurate and detailed. One of the things that sets Bruce apart from many other architects is that he is always very responsive. On the job site, Bruce is a creative problem-solver. He works well with the sub-contractors and is always open to discussing different options. Bruce promptly comes up with practical solutions that aren’t expensive and unnecessary. Then he follows through not wasting time. He quickly provides me with the answers or drawings I need to keep the job moving forward. In short, Bruce is a top designer, and the best architect I've ever worked with and there is no comparison. I continue to highly recommend Bruce to my clients. Norman Ferkingstad Dimensional Services, LLC

In 2012-13 Bruce designed our corporate headquarters, converting and completely upgrading an older concrete warehouse in Torrance CA. As a designer myself, I had specific ideas of what I wanted the space to be. . . a modern, open, creative office space. In addition, it was vital that the office represented the “simplehuman” brand: a crisp and clean design, one that is well thought-out and functional. At simplehuman we aspire to a healthy workplace culture. One of my early “hopes” was to include a basketball court that could also be used for exercise oriented activities. However, I had doubts it was possible without having adverse affects on office operations. Bruce came up with a very creative solution to integrate the basketball court. Not only did it not compromise the office’s functionality, it’s placement was instrumental in achieving many of the overall design goals for our office. Throughout the process, Bruce was always respectful of my design input and regularly sought my feedback. He was very patient as we worked through and resolved design details, sometimes right up to installation. Bruce listened and embraced the vision we had for our offices and created an amazing modern office that is an open, light-filled space with clean lines. The end result was a collaboration of shared visions that embodies the “simplehuman” brand. Bruce was attentive, creative and a great visualizer of space. He communicated his ideas clearly with compelling reasoning behind his design recommendations. His enthusiasm and positive attitude made working with him easy. He was always responsive and strove to understand what we wanted, he then delivered more than we expected. Years later we are thrilled with the final result of our office and appreciate Bruce’s contributions in making our office a reality. My recommendation is reflected in the fact we continue to use Bruce as simplehuman’s architect for interior and exterior projects at our office. Frank Yang simplehuman Founder & CEO

We wanted to build an 1,100 sf addition to our existing home so that our parents could live with us to help raise our children. Our goal was to build a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment that included all of the amenities that you’d expect in a house, such as a living room with a fireplace, full kitchen, laundry room, deck and so on. What made this project incredibly complex was the fact that all of this had to be built underneath our existing 2,400 sf house. This came with many constraints because the existing home had to maintain its integrity, we were living there during the construction, yet we had to change the support structure to accommodate the new addition. My wife and I had ideas about what we wanted but knew that this project needed a professional to get it done right. This project was something that could have easily gone wrong in so many ways, especially in the layout. We had the good fortune of coming across Bruce’s website online and reached out to him to discuss the project. Bruce immediately stood out from the rest of the architects we had spoken to because of his ideas and vision. He considered what we wanted, analyzed the space, and created a vision for the new home that we absolutely fell in love with! Bruce understood how to use small spaces better than any other architect we met. Bruce used the space in ways that I simply could not have imagined. Because the addition was going to be in the crawl space, his designs took great care to ensure as much light entered the house as possible and that overall, it felt like an open space. Our new addition is so much better designed than our existing home that my wife wants us to move into it, rather than live up above. :) Bruce’s value didn’t just end at the architecture and design. During construction, we ran into a number of challenges and unforeseen issues that contractors call, “found conditions”. Sometimes the issues were because of things that we could not have anticipated and other times, the contractor didn’t follow the plan. In these cases, I often looked to Bruce for advice and this is where his decades of experience helped us over and over throughout the project. Bruce was able to come up with creative solutions on the spot while at the same time, he carefully managed the different relationships such that all parties involved were motivated to continue working together. This is a delicate people skill that kept the project on track. All-in-all, Bruce is incredibly skilled with a tremendous amount of experience under his belt. He’s very responsive. He’s creative. And he’s intimately familiar with construction techniques and processes. He was present at the construction site often, to monitor progress and make corrections or changes as necessary, and took opportunities to improve the original design as things unfolded. Simply put, this project would not have been possible with such a phenomenal outcome without Bruce’s expertise, ideas, and care. We’re so grateful to have met Bruce. Bruce is a cut above the rest. He gave our family a gift that we truly enjoy every day. This new addition to our home has had such a tremendous impact on our quality of life. When construction was complete, our friends and family were absolutely stunned to see how a crawl space full of dirt was completely transformed into a beautiful, modern, light, and full featured home. If you’re considering hiring Bruce, I’m more than happy to invite you to visit my home and see what he designed and helped to build. I’m also happy to share all of the drawings and photos of the work Bruce did. Bruce is absolutely top notch and I would hire him again without hesitation.

Armentrout Residence Our home was roughly a 1560 square foot Cape Cod cottage on a large lot. Originally, we intended to enlarge our kitchen, that eventually led to a larger addition and a full remodel. Our contractor, Norm Ferkingstad, introduced us to Bruce, an architect he’d worked with on other projects. We enjoyed working with Bruce as he really listened to what we wanted, he gave us so many choices, and introduced options we didn’t realize we had. Our home is now approximately 2900 square feet, including a new master suite. We wanted the original feel of a cottage to be maintained. Bruce did a great job. From the street, the house doesn’t look any larger than it originally did. From the sides and rear, the addition blends seam-lessly with the existing structure. Bruce did an amazing job expanding our small home, blending old with new, while keeping the charm. During early design meetings, Bruce stressed that we should interact with our home, not just exist in it. Bruce insights and recommendations added so much to our family’s home life experience. We really enjoy his creation of a variety of spaces to fulfill a diversity of moods. We have a large extended family, so we often have people visiting during the summer. We always hear from guests how comfortable our home is. They say it has a flow that leads you through the home. Parties and gatherings are comfortable and people are never clumped in the kitchen, but are spread throughout our home. Everyone comments there is a great balance of private space and inviting public space. We can easily have 30 people in our home without it feeling crowded. Yet, when it’s just the four of us, the house still feels cozy and warm. The design of our deck and outdoor space is inviting and in constant use. As a result our home has become the “go to place” for family events and parties, including a small private wedding in our backyard. We couldn’t be happier with our home. We love how Bruce blended our traditional desires with contem-porary ideas. Many times we have stood on a small hill on our property at night, looking down at our home, lit up, and take delight in what we have. We are so very thankful for what Bruce created for us. From design through construction, Bruce provided great customer service. He is patient and very respon-sive. He charges fair fees for superior design service. Not only do we highly recommend Bruce; we also hired him again for our next project, a separate carriage-style garage and home office. For us, Bruce is clearly an exceptional architect. Paige and Doug Armentrout