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Imelda Barnhurst
Owner and principal, Gienapp Architects
Age: 41
Industry experience: 19 years
A change of ownership this month will enable a North Shore architectural firm to expand its opportunities to pursue publicly-sponsored building projects, as a 15-year employee takes the reins at Gienapp Architects. Imelda Barnhurst succeeds founder Dale Gienapp as leader of the Danvers-based firm that Gienapp founded in 2000. The 15-employee firm has broad experience working for Massachusetts municipalities including town hall restoration and renovations in Boxford, Danvers and Norwood. Its current projects include Salisbury One Oceanfront, the proposed redevelopment of a prominent property overlooking the Salisbury Beach Boardwalk as a 240-unit multifamily project with 6,500 square feet of storefronts.
Q: What is Gienapp Architects’ specialty and range of project experience?
A: Historically, we focus not on the type of buildings we work on, but the type of project. We work on a lot of complicated projects, or projects that have had a lot of obstacles in the way, and we’re generally good at keeping things moving. Sometimes that involves a lot of planning and strategizing. I’ve worked here for 15 years and really enjoyed that, so I don’t see that changing.
Q: What does the firm’s pending certification as a woman-owned business mean for its future opportunities?
A: About half of our work is in the public realm. We work with a lot of municipalities, and we have some state agencies that are clients. Certainly, getting the certification for a WBE allows us to land more projects and become more attractive as a potential partner. At the moment, we have about 20 [municipal projects] that are actively moving forward. We do have probably 20 to 30 that are on pause due to funding reasons or other reasons. There’s been a lot of shifts in terms of the types of projects. Half of our work is public, but we saw a good variety of private projects including a number of office spaces. Certainly, that is not what we’re working on now. There’s not a lot of movement in offices at the moment.
Q: What’s an unusual assignment that you’ve had the opportunity to work on at Gienapp Architects?
A: I helped with the office space for Salem Metal in Middleton. That was really cool because they do a lot of detail metal for computers and devices, so we got to really work with them to give them the opportunity to show off their work in the space. That allowed us to stretch our creative muscles. I also worked on the Norwood Town Hall [renovation]. There was water coming into the building and we had to do a lot of work to fix the masonry. It has a 120-foot tower, so I got the opportunity to climb to the top and got to learn a lot. It looks so much like a church, and their big meeting room looks exactly like a church [hall], but it was always designed and meant to be a town hall.
Salisbury officials last year approved the 240-unit Salisbury One Oceanfront redevelopment designed by Gienapp Architects, replacing bars and arcades on the Salisbury Beach boardwalk. Photo courtesy of Gienapp Architects
Q: Can you give an example of how the firm has worked to overcome obstacles and get a project back on track?
A: We have a multifamily residential project on the Cape where the developer wanted to create luxury condominiums overlooking the water. One obstacle existed before we began on the project. When we were first brought onto the project, we were informed that a previous design had been rejected by the local historical board. Since the buildings will be in a historic district, approval from the historic board is required. We were able to redesign the buildings with a coastal, New England aesthetic, which the historical board approved. Another obstacle the project faced required a redesign of the massing and unit distribution. Originally, the buildings used a footprint that limited the number of units per floor but maximized other features. To get the desirable number of units, the buildings had to be tall, which the local planning board did not approve. To address this while maintaining the unit count, we redesigned the massing of the building which allowed the building to be shorter and more acceptable.
Q: What is the biggest challenge facing the architectural profession?
A: It’s probably similar to a lot of other industries: AI is very awesome and has a lot of potential, but it is not quite there yet. There’s a lot of things coming onto the market, and it’s kind of scary when something claims it can replace your job. I don’t think it will ever be able to. There’s a creative level that people bring to a project that can’t be replaced, but there are certainly programmers out there that are going to try.
Q: Who has been the biggest influence on your career and approach to architecture?
A: I’ve got to say my former boss, Dale Gienapp. I came here as a draftsperson, so I didn’t really know that much. He guided me along the way and kept me growing. Nobody has helped influence my career more than him.
Top Five Places Barnhurst Would Like to Visit Again:
- Grand Tetons National Park
- Jackson Hole, Wyoming
- Disney World
- London
- Chicago
