AFTERHOURS is an integrated architecture and construction practice based in Pittsburgh, PA focused on delivering distinctive, craft-forward, and experientially-rich buildings and environments. Our work intelligently responds to the unique conditions of each site, program, and budget to provide solutions which are often unexpected yet ardently appropriate and inspired.
Central to our work is an understanding and celebration of material, detail and craft. As a design-build practice, we seek to leverage a unified spirit of design and construction to yield material and experiential qualities which are often otherwise difficult to achieve in traditional design-bid-build delivery methods. The goal is to do the most with the least, bringing greater value to the built environment and for our clients.
We are highly critical of the contemporary culture of mass-consumption, architectural fads and the ever-abundant and over-complicated "high performance" building products. Instead we prefer to build with timeless, real materials crafted by the hands of human beings. If our work appears rough around the edges, it's because we invite and celebrate this. Honesty, imperfection, and authentic creation is what it means to be human, and, importantly, we believe that just as we create our buildings according to our beliefs, thereafter they make us. We are what we eat. We must build accordingly.
We are constantly seeking opportunities to employ low-embodied-energy, plant-based, reclaimed and/or recycled materials wherever feasible, and our adeptness in design, detailing, and construction allow us to thoughtfully integrate such materials/technologies into broader material systems.
Our work often exudes a sense of playfulness and joy; it is predicated on the beliefs that well-designed buildings and spaces have the potential to positively impact those who inhabit them, that the collaborative act of building things with others has the power to create value that extends beyond the built work, and that the most sustainable buildings are those that are loved.
We seek clients who share the same passions and interests.
You can read more about our philosophy here.
We help our clients improve the built environment around them. While we are most interested in small-scale design-build projects, we offer a variety of design and construction services to assist our clients in realizing projects of varying scale, scope, typology and complexity, including site research and analysis, concept development and schematic design, high quality 2D and 3D visualization and drafting, permit drawings and construction documents, permitting assistance, cost estimating, and full-scale fabrication/construction.
If you have a project in mind or aren't sure where to begin, please send us a message, and we'll see how we can help.
Brian Bollens
Candace Ju, RA
Daniel Gehr