Name: George Fellner
Title: Principal, Fellner Assoc. Architects
Age: 62
Experience: 39 years
Designing buildings that are efficient and enjoyable for the people who work and live in them has been George Fellner’s notion of a rewarding career since his early teens. Born in Budapest, the architect fled with his family to Austria during the Hungarian uprising of 1956 before settling on Long Island in 1959. He founded his East Haddam architecture firm Fellner Assoc. Architects in 1987 and currently serves as 2017 president of the 1,300-member American Institute of Architects (AIA) Connecticut chapter.
Q: What was your first job in architecture?
A: After I graduated from college I worked for a developer on Long Island for a year and a half, doing office and industrial buildings and space planning. After that I changed jobs and got experience in traditional architectural firms. I worked for a series of different architects on Long Island and decided a few years later to go back and get my graduate degree from the University of Florida. When I graduated in 1984, I moved to Connecticut and worked for a company in Branford before starting my own practice.
Q: What do you consider Fellner Assoc.’s niche within the industry?
A: We have a pretty wide array of work. We’re a small firm: there’s four of us, including my wife, who does my accounting, and we’ve stayed small, but that way I can be personally involved with every project we do. We do new projects as well as adaptive reuse, historical renovations and expansions. We do municipal projects such as fire stations, town halls, banquet and conference centers and a lot of health care projects.
Q: You’ve written and lectured extensively on green building technologies. How are those influencing custom home design?
A: I’ve given hundreds of programs on all aspects of sustainable design including geothermal, photovoltaics, Earth-sheltered homes and renewables. In my work I try to use sustainable strategies wherever I can incorporate them. We end up using the high-efficiency Mitsubishi air-to-air heat pumps because they’ve become so much more efficient. In many cases they replace the need for geothermal because we don’t need to put a well in the ground.
Q: What are AIA Connecticut’s top priorities for public policy and professional development?
A: One of the important functions we have is to do advocacy on behalf of Connecticut architects. We visited the offices on Capitol Hill of U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Elizabeth Esty to talk about issues such as the proposed high-speed rail corridor, federal aid for infrastructure and challenges for small firms. In terms of diversity, we’re really looking at the profession in terms of acceptance of all types of people.
Q: What kind of equipment do you use in your side career as a fine art photographer?
A: I use a Canon EOS 5D Mark III SLR. I photograph stones and crystals and make large prints out of them, very abstract imagery that I’ve had in galleries and museums. That’s what I do for balance. I love my work as an architect, but in architecture there are a lot of regulations and parameters we have to work within. So when I’m doing the abstract photography, it’s a liberating experience. I don’t have to deal with the cost budgets and building codes and day-to-day things we do as architects.
Fellner’s Five Favorite Places For Landscape Photography:
- Cannon Beach, Oregon
- Monhegan Island, Maine
- Arches National Park, Utah
- Painted Hills, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Oregon
- Southwestern U.S., especially around Tucson
