I Am AIA:

Brian C. Phair

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Brian entered the A/E/C Industry with PCS Structural Solutions in 1994. His double major in Architecture and Structural Engineering is instrumental in the collaborative process of Structural Solutions for owners, designers, and contractors. Today Brian leverages his vision for the company and continues to push improved collaboration in our industry. He has sat on numerous national planning committees and served as an AIA (SWW) board member. Brian continually preaches internally that “PCS Structural Solutions’ unique deliverables, collaborative service, expertise, and enthusiasm must be noticed and valued."

Why did you join AIA Seattle?

Obviously its a business development decision from the surface. However, with my background as a double major in Architecture and Structural Engineering I have never lost the passion and intrigue of Architectural design. AIA Seattle has a great broad based reach in all the different markets we are embedded in (Healthcare, Education, Private Development… even extremely High-End Residential). Being able to hear different perspectives through AIA in all these markets is beneficial to the entire industry.

What relationships have you created?

Many of my clients have created a sense of trust/respect over the years which is unmatched when comparing to many industries and careers. Our industry is built on trust, and when we have owners investing millions of construction dollars into our projects we are designing and coordinating, it’s importance shows.

How do you explain what you do for a living?

Structural Engineering for Buildings is an incredible career. The simplest way I explain to my kids is PCS Structural Solutions is the “muscle” behind an incredible vision by an architect to help support the dream…. and also the facilitator between architect and builder to create efficiencies and collaboration. Our tagline in every one of our staffs emails says.. “Connected Teams, Bold Solutions.”

What project are you working on right now?

We generally have 400-600 projects in the office at any given time in design and/or construction. Personally, right now I am intimately involved with the transformation of Seattle’s Swedish Hospital which is a two tower, two city block $1B+ project. I also recently finished working on the new EQC casino in Tacoma, and 5 campuses of structural evaluations in Portland. We have a broad reach with our Seattle|Tacoma|Portland offices and I spend a lot of my time making sure we have a national reach while our offices are ONE unified structural engineering firm.

Where is the field of architecture, engineering or construction headed?

Interestingly enough we invested heavily in BIM360, Microsoft360, Teams, video conferencing, smart boards, etc PRIOR to Covid-19 as our company culture of collaboration needed more of these tools. I feel as though COVID-19 took us to where we thought 2022 was going to be…..in just 6 months.