CBT Architects lists some of Boston’s highest-profile projects on its resume: the Prudential Center redevelopment, Russia Wharf, Millennium Place, the Watermark, Trinity Place, and the to-be-built Columbus Center. But Robert Brown, one of the firm’s principals, said CBT is continually searching for projects that are new and different – and, more importantly, intellectually challenging.

“It seems like when we’ve gotten closer to having a product, when we’ve done a number of them, and then there’s another roll-out, we pull out of that business and go do something else,” Brown said. “We’ve tried to stay generalists in a world that’s continually asking for specialists.”

Robert Brown
Title: Principal
Company: CBT ARchitects
Age: 56
Experience: 39 years

What is it that has made CBT so successful?

The success goes back to the sense that we can get projects approved here because we know the process. We can get projects approved because we know the people. We feel comfortable doing both background and foreground building. And there’s not a singular ego. Our ego is going to be the developer’s, the institution’s ego.

The business of architecture trains ego-maniacs. The big design schools train you to have your very own specific, defined voice. You do your thing. Don’t think about the client. These starchitechts have all crafted that. You buy a product from them. You buy a Frank Gehry building. It’s easier to sell a thing than a cluster of ideas. It’s easier to sell a product. Either you want it or you don’t. We could never do that. The people who want that would never come to us. People come to us because we’re part of a team. There’s not a singular person in the office. The guy right behind you might be even better than you are. It’s not just one or two people at the firm and the rest are unknowns. That participation has helped them mature as individuals. There are a lot of people really contributing in a very thoughtful way.

What’s the ideal project for this firm?

It’s complex urban problems. It doesn’t mean big, it just means complex. A site that never was supposed to be a site, a site that’s been sitting around for a while because it has issues. It might have environmental issues, it might be permitting issues. Because the city’s been so developed, there are more and more of those sites.

What’s a tough site?

For the firm, and me personally, it’s all the work at the Prudential Center. We’ve had opportunities to do six major buildings there. I’m proud of the architecture that’s there. It’s not that they are each individual pieces of architecture. This was a great city-building opportunity. Each building could not be saying, ‘Look at me, I want to be a building all by myself.’ The 111 Huntington tower had to be a signature piece, and it had to respond to the tower. The Prudential Tower itself had to be the signature piece. The Belvedere was not to be foreground architecture. It was to be quiet. The Mandarin, also, was not to be a big, big piece that was screaming foreground architecture. It’s supposed to fill in the elements and let the towers be the big pieces.

If you look at what was there 20 years ago, you’re really taking an urban renewal project and knitting it into the fabric of the neighborhood, right?

When it was approved in 1960, Boston was a backwater. The city was dead. Everybody had gone to the ’burbs. Back Bay was prostitutes, students and the homeless. You can’t even conceive of that. So the plan was: this was to be a fortress. You could get off the Pike, go to work and leave without having to touch that dirty, tough city. The whole ring road concept was this idea of a moat – all sorts of weird planning. The guy who did the planning was from Los Angeles, so it has this California-esque separate city feel. So all the planning since has been trying to knit it back into the city.

How is CBT approaching sustainability?

This is the fourth environmental wave I’ve seen in my career, thankfully, it’s been picked up. Partially because some entity created a list. The hardest test I ever took was that stupid LEED test. You can put ‘stupid,’ because it was only memorization of what criteria are. It was not what it should be, which is not trying to get points for LEED, but trying to create a sustainable environment.

A more holistic approach?

A much more holistic approach. We work for Middlebury College, and they have a much more holistic approach. They never count LEED points. They want to have a conversation. But it took a checklist to get people really conscious of it. So if the checklist at least gets everybody to that level, it’s a great start.

Are people moving beyond the checklist?

They do the checks because they like the PR, but they’re putting more interest in where there’s real payback. The whole industry is starting to look beyond. OK, the LEED has done its thing, what else is out there?

Five Favorite architectural influences:

1.) John Hancock Tower: I think it’s more a piece of art than architecture.

2.) The Back Bay and South End: It’s such a rich environment. In a way, it’s the total opposite of the Hancock. It’s all about context, not about art.

3.) Peabody Terrace: They’re probably the best of the best of their era. They’re not trying to copy the Harvard Yard buildings, but they establish a clear design direction.

4.) Carpenter Center at Harvard: Le Corbusier’s building is 50, 60 years old, and it’s still the best, strongest, most sculptural, for its time, for what it’s doing.

5.) The Chrysler Building: It’s really stunning as a piece. Of all the flamboyant pieces in New York, it’s flamboyant, but it doesn’t seem like it’s screaming.