J.Neal Architecture & Design

Salvaged

Across the east-coast, there are several regions that are occupied by abandoned houses and building structures that were built between the 1700’s and 1800’s.  These houses were built during a time period in which there was an abundance of old growth material and have yielded wood flooring, panels, and joists of varying wood species, some of which are pine and oak.  This salvaged wood is now available as products through JND.  Flyers will be posted frequently with information on the range of products that we accumulate.  If interested, visit our Salvaged Wood page for more information and to view more of our available products.  Contact us for the availability and desired quantity, as this may vary.

A Profile in Collaboration

Left rendering of facade by Ben Althoff. Right photo of completed facade by Brett Gullborg

As a young start-up, in addition to our practice, we take time to ensure a focus on building relationships and collaborating with other creatives.  We recently relocated our studio to share a space with Be The To Studios (and a local artist Shawn Gworek of City Lines Ink), an architectural visualization firm whom we have worked with on several projects in the past and hope to continue working with in the future.  We have had great successes working in our own trades, and therefore came together to see what could happen when collaborating.

In light of this decision, and as a celebration to our joint successes, Jason Neal, our founder and namesake alongside Ben Althoff, Director of Visualization and founding partner of Be The To Studios talk a little about working with each other, and about M.Power Yoga, their most recent collaborative project, to profile the firm owners side by side:

Q: Can you expound upon your roles professionally?
Ben: I have multiple roles in order to run Be The To Studio (BTTS), but what we are is an architectural visualization firm.  We essentially create the visual language to get the big architectural ideas across.
Jason: Well…I run a design daycare (chuckles)! So essentially, Jason Neal Design (JND) is a small firm executing large design outcomes. We’re creative, experimental, collaborative and open to a lot of new things that allow for interesting architecture and products, and I have the privilege of running it.

Q: When and how did you meet and what made you decide to first collaborate?
B: We were introduced by a mutual friend.
J: Yeah! This was back in January or February of 2014 when we first locked eyes. We were looking for a visualization artist for one of our first major commercial projects which needed some marketing material and lighting coordination and that was something we found out Ben knew how to do really well.

Our photographer (Brett Gullborg) was able to capture two renderings in one panoramic photo of the locker room by making use of the vanity mirror.

Having graduated from Virgina Tech, Jason decided to move to Baltimore after receiving a job offer at an esteemed architecture firm, while Ben was a part time student at the Art Institute of San Diego (AISD) and currently works with the art department of Under Armour.  Both in their early 30’s, raising families, each with young daughters of their own, Jason and Ben can commensurate in balancing the challenge of maintaining focus on both their family life and professional career.

Q: When did you decide you wanted to have your own company?
B: I knew I wanted to have my own company back in AISD in 2006. However, I knew I had to learn the business fast so I worked really hard and got a job within 7 months.  And then October of 2014 is when we officially started Be The To Studio, but I have run my own freelance company since 2010.
J: Oh, I  knew from the moment I made architecture my life’s work, which happened to be a Wednesday.  The firm started in 2010, incorporated in 2011 and licensed and accredited in 2012.

Ben and Jason have a spent a lot of time inside and outside their workspace which has strengthened their connection.  Their relationship has done a great deal for not just the M.Power project but other project opportunities to become the best it can be.

Q: At what point did you know you wanted your professional collaborations to extend into overlapping businesses?
B: I think that was pretty obvious to begin with. We both have our own skill-sets and understand the same field, so of course it would work.
J: And the M. Power Yoga project needed it.  Just by distributing the work load to each of our expertise gave us an end result that was thorough even in quality.

Q: Can you tell me about the collaborative process specifically in regard to M. Power.

B: Jason and I are very particular about lighting…
J: Yup! Lighting can really make or break a space, it provides contrast and context.  It’s how you really perceive a building.  I mean, if you don’t have good lighting, then that changes the way someone would experience a space, and why lose a good design when all it takes is a little more thought to something as simple as lighting.

B: Knowing that, we used physically correct lighting models to achieve physically correct results.  Obviously this shows in the M. Power renderings. This isn’t just for our own egos, but it allows the client to see their design realistically, before it is produced physically.
J: …and overall these renderings reassure that the end product will be closest to what we are imagining, what the clients expect, and it informs our own process

Working on M.Power was a strong project for both companies and the method of working has proven to be very effective for the project and us.  This experience encourages and motivates us to continue with this frame of work and collaborate further on future projects, as there are many more to come! We look forward to continuing our work relationship and in the process allowing both our companies to achieve its full potential.

The main studio fronting O’Donnell street rendering (left) against photo of completed space by Brett Gullborg (right).

Mezzanine yoga/barre studio rendering by Ben Althoff (left) against photo of completed space by Brett Gullborg (right).

Main entrance, reception and retail space. This was one of our first visions of the space, and it was incredibly rewarding to see that come to life. Rendering by Ben Althoff (left) against photo by Brett Gullborg (right).

Lounge outside of mezzanine barre/yoga studio photo (left) by Brett Gullborg and rendering (right) by Ben Althoff.

Formulations of the Mind

In the broad field of Architecture there tends to be a huge gap between the licensed architect and the fresh innovative minds of the recent graduates.  The Archemy lecture was a part of our initiative to express why the bridging of this gap is important and what the possibilities are, all in relation to how we are doing it.

We want to be involved with the surrounding creative community and have increasingly been partnering with some of the neighboring studios and working with young students from the Maryland Institute College of Arts (MICA), an established arts and design school located in our studios vicinity.  As part of our affiliation with the school’s architecture department, we were invited to give a lecture about J.Neal studios as part of the Brown Bag lecture series.

The students were mostly architecture students, and freshman that were still undecided, that were all keen on becoming a licensed architect. For most of the lecture, we focused on what these students had as options, whether they wanted to take on the rigorous task of obtaining a license, or perhaps putting that on hold to work for a more conceptual based practice, or for themselves, immediately after they graduate. While the former option gives you credibility, there is a lesser scope of personal expression. In the latter however, there tends to be a greater opportunity for creativity to unleash itself.  This very need for expression coupled with the precision taught and practiced in the schools, will help generate and formulate innovative ideas this field needs.

We’re Building a Beach House!

J. Neal is building a beach house! In the fall of 2014, Jason Neal and his partner, Holly, invested in a very interesting property in Cape May, NJ – a designated historic district with rigorous design standards requiring review and board approvals from the city for any development. The property is in the heart of Cape May, and literally a five minute walk to the beach. However, for what amenity is afforded, this is a non-conforming site that had a non-conforming structure upon it, meaning that it was a particularly challenging site to build anything on, which is just the type of challenge we were up for!

To date, J. Neal Design has successfully proposed a design we were personally happy with, which passed through historic review in the first go ‘round with much praise, integrated all new FEMA regulations and successfully acquired 5 zoning variances to allow for development of the property.  This entire process; completed within five months took less than 2/3s the time initially anticipated.   

Some of our goals for this project – aside from having a cool beach house to retreat to and work from – were to really explore the options of being our own developer and to go through a design-build process.  Fortunately we were able to find a fantastic local General Contractor – Fred Xenidis of FX Construction & Design – to work with us from the beginning. Further, we wanted to create a comfortable home centered on sustainable and inclusive design principles. Initially we had hoped to incorporate some of the original structure into our design; unfortunately, factoring in our historic, zoning, and FEMA requirements for new development, this just wasn’t feasible. So to offset waste we decided to invest more considered planning into the demo of the existing structure in order to salvage and reclaim as much of the existing material as possible.  In fact Jason and a group of close friends went to the Cape on weekends to carefully dismantle the structure (as well as salvage some of the nifty furniture the previous owners left behind)! By the end of this process enough Douglas Fir was yielded from deconstruction to produce all the new flooring, trim, shelving, and even some custom furniture for the finished home!

Overall this has been both a challenging and rewarding process with many lessons learned. It was an eye opening experience to not only face the expected challenges that go along with our professional role, but to become intimately acquainted with the challenges of being a client: balancing a practical budget, prioritizing goals and expectations in conjunction with the burden of unforeseen obstacles, finding and coordinating with a contractor we personally felt comfortable with, finalizing finish selections, etc.  Finally, this process has truly bolstered our confidence as design professionals. Despite the many perceived obstacles for developing this site we were able to do so more quickly than expected, consistently meeting goals, and sometimes even exceeding our own expectations.  Overall, this has afforded us a stronger professional voice and platform in the charming city of Cape May, NJ and beyond.

We are so excited to have this project rolling along smoothly, and really look forward to having our first company retreat to the beach by the end of summer 2015!

 The very first site visit!

It begins.

The friend team hard at work!

Some of our salvaged treasures.

Rain or shine this is one hardworking group!

The fruits of our labor – for now – can’t wait to see this all milled down as our finish floor!

Work until the job is done!

Welcome to 114 W Read St

The past several years have been a real adventure for us here at J. Neal Design. Just three years ago our firm consisted of Jason Neal in one tiny third story Riverside studio. In the summer of 2012 in came Lacey, and the walls of that tiny studio were closing in, but we stuck it out – we had good windows.

Eventually progress dictated we needed a new person and a new space, in the Fall of 2013 Jessica joined the family and we transitioned into the Mt. Vernon area knowing this is where we wanted to settle and not much else. Most of the past 18 months have been spent very transient, sometimes we had a studio, sometimes not, sometimes we worked from home, sometimes shared working space, often times haunting local cafes – by the by we owe a great credit to the many wonderful cafes about Baltimore city for affording us temporary housing and outstanding service.

By the time 2015 was rolling around we knew it was time for a more permanent home and we wanted to share it with Be The To Studios, so the hunt began! Fortunately one of the first places we found turned out to be a real gem. So now, we are officially settled in our new home at 114 W Read Street. We’ve extended our work family to include architectural visualization firm Be The To Studios, and local artist Shawn Gworek of citylinesInk and we couldn’t be happier.

We have sunshine, and video games, and many laughs to be had in our new home. We look forward to wherever we are going, and last week we were able to have our first official celebration with a friends and family open house in the studio. We hope to open up our space for many more people and uses as we move forward with a tentative event schedule for the third Thursday of each month. So, stay posted for more information on upcoming events and fun happenings at 114 W Read St!

To the left is the J.Neal Design studio, center is citylinesInk and to the far right Be The To, with a new intern hard at work.  J. Neal Design is having an internal meeting in the shared lounge area.

J. Neal Design team focused and well caffeinated as per typical. For now we love our huge windows, but we’ll see how we feel in the heat of summer…

From the other side of our space, we’ll soon have our prototype conference table set up behind the sofa. It is currently at the fabricator’s getting its 15 minutes of fame, but more on that next week!

And finally, a grainy mood lit photo of our friends and family open house.  What a fun night filled with pizza, chocolate, wine, and laughter!

Baltimore’s Open Space, a dialogue on Community spirit

Last night our entire firm (granted it is only three of us) ventured out in support of a dear friend, and our dear city. We attended a series of short lectures curated by D Center Baltimore and hosted at The WindUp Space. The focus of the event was to take a closer look at what qualifies as open space in the urban context, specifically in Baltimore. Speakers addressed both the history and trajectory of park planning in Baltimore at a policy level as well as a community level.

We heard from some great speakers and organizations; it was uplifting to see some of the gestures the city seems to be making on this front, but more poignantly learning about some of the grassroots community generated parks that have happened in the city already. Baltimore is charm city, it is the city of neighborhoods, and it has such a wonderful community spirit.  For us as a firm, the discussion last night was just one of the many reasons we have all chosen to make Baltimore our home both personally and professionally.

For more information on who spoke at the event please see the flyer below:

On the left; Miriam Avins of, Founder of Baltimore Green Space getting us all as excited about Forest Patches in the city as she is!  She was a wonderful speaker, and is helping to foster some really cool community projects around the city. Did I mentioned the great turnout?

Cube3_Update

Recently we were contacted by former clients, of the Cube Cubed railing system we designed and installed back in 2010.  The bad news being part of our installation (the mailbox) had been damaged in a recent incident with a neighbor’s car; the good news, we were informed our work has aged gracefully over the course of the past several years, and they are as happy today with their product as they were at installation.

Upon visiting to assess the damage we were able to determine that the point of failure was at the base-plate of the mailbox, which turned out to be an ideal location, preventing the rest of the product from sustaining damage and making for a very simple repair. Though it was not exactly intentional (we don’t tend to design for our products to be backed into by young drivers).  The product behaved much like the break away design for street signage and lights and better than we could have predicted.

For more information on this system, please see our product post here.

Below are some photos of the damage, replacement process and overall current conditions of the system:

You can see where the pole snapped away from the base, leaving no real damage to the aesthetic of the piece itself.
Some of our modular Cube3 attachments hanging out in the shop.
The stair railing still looks brand new!
Testing out the repairs!

And back to normal.

WBH Update

The Woodstock Brew House has been a real joy to work through, and we are so happy to see these progress updates for construction!  Also, shout out to BeTheToo Studios for doing a bang up job on those renderings, check out that inception style shot taken by our principal Jason Neal on his last site visit to the Brew House.

It is so rewarding to see the spaces of our imaginations have life breathed into them, can’t wait to celebrate with our clients in their new space with some new brews.

Web Launch Party

Recently we had the privilege of hosting a modest launch party for our firm in a space of our own design.  Our wonderful clients, for MPower Yoga graciously allowed us to utilize their space to show off our work and newly launched website.  It was truly humbling and uplifting to be able to share what we do in this way.  The reward of being in a finished space of our own design is hard to match, the recognition of all of the hard work from other parties which made our creative dreams reality is grounding.

So we are writing this post to celebrate our successes in the past year, but more importantly to thank all those who have played a role in propelling our little work family along in our many ambitions.  We couldn’t be happier with all the wonderful people we’ve had the privilege of working with clients, contractors, and consultants alike.  We are proud of what we have accomplished together, and can only hope to continue on in these successes.

Thank you for encouraging our dreams, supporting our work, and celebrating the fruits of our labor with us.  It was a beautiful time.

 From left to right:  Ben Althoff of Be The To Studios; Dan Reed, blogger for Just Up the Pike; and Lacey Anthony, Architectural Designer for J. Neal DesignCandid shot from mezzanine level barre studioFirm Principal (center) Jason Neal catching up with friends  Great conversations in the ‘Sexy Lounge’

Clients, consultants and friends alike  Firm owner Jason Neal (left) with a recent client

GEORGETOWN STAIRS

Custom stairs as part of a full renovation and addition to a historic residence in Georgetown, Washington DC we paired with local fabricator Gutierrez to produce a finished product that married the traditional historic qualities of the home with the contemporary tastes of its new residents.  A true centerpiece in the home, they have been a labor of love and tedious care lending towards a happy team of architects, fabricators, and clients.