Jay Brotman—managing partner at New Haven, Conn.-based designer Svigals + Partners—will be featured as the ENR New England Legacy Award winner in the publication’s March print issue.
ENR New England's Legacy Award is given annually to an individual in the region who has established a solid “legacy” of lifetime service to the construction industry, their colleagues and to their community. ENR New England includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.
A co-lead designer on the replacement Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Brotman helped design the 88,000-sq-ft school to protect the staff and children without retraumatizing the survivors of the Dec. 14, 2012 shooting that killed 20 first-graders and six adults.
“We approached the school from Day One as a building that’s going to house wonderful children and needs to inspire them,” Brotman told ENR just before the new school opened in 2016.
In 2018, Brotman testified before Congress about school design and safety. He helped create a national clearinghouse/database where schools can find the latest information on school security and how to improve school safety. The firm was the American Institute of Architects' representative to the President's Commission on School Safety, a body composed of Cabinet-level secretaries among others. Svigals + Partners also helped draft security guidelines adopted by Connecticut officials for the state’s public schools.
More recently, Brotman led the team that designed the University of New Haven's first new academic building in more than 40 years, the Bergami Center for Science, Technology and Innovation, which won an ENR New England Best Projects Award of Merit last year.
Additionally, Brotman accomplishments include spearheading the design and construction of the 150,000-sq-ft Park Street Clinical Laboratory–which houses progressive and comprehensive laboratory/pharmaceutical services for the adjacent Smilow Cancer Hospital.
Brotman joined Svigals + Partners in the late 1980s shortly after the firm was founded. Brotman and the firm helped New Haven achieve its redevelopment, including initiatives by the city, Yale University, and private developers and clients. Today, New Haven has an emerging life-sciences cluster centered around Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital. The firm counts among its clients AstraZeneca-acquired Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Arvinas, which has just announced a $1 billion global collaboration with Pfizer.
