Brigham, George Bickford, 1889-

Architect; professor of architecture at the University of Michigan; designer of modern domestic residences, mainly in Pasadena, California and Ann Arbor, Michigan; exponent and designer of low-cost prefabricated housing units.

George Bickford Brigham was born in 1889 in Westboro, Massachusetts. His childhood interest in building crafts influenced his career choice, and in 1910 he began his professional education in architecture at M.I.T., finishing in 1913. After working for various architectural offices in the Boston area, and teaching at Tufts and M.I.T., Brigham moved to California in 1920. There, he again worked for several firms, finally settling in Pasadena and beginning to design rather traditional houses in 1926.

In 1930, Brigham accepted a teaching position at the University of Michigan and entered a new phase of his career. Using the building lull during the depression to rethink his ideas, he began a series of houses in 1930 which exhibited contemporary design ideas and novel uses of modern materials such as glass blocks, Stran-steel, and concrete blocks. Combining these elements with new construction techniques, Brigham introduced the first "modern" house in Ann Arbor for Walter Badger in 1936. Other domestic commissions of note were the Anna Burt "Two-family" house in Ann Arbor, 1938; the Donald Bacon house in Ann Arbor, 1956; the William Kennedy house and pool in Ann Arbor, 1957; and the Henry Newman house in Bloomfield Hills, 1959.

While Brigham continued to design a handful of houses each year until his retirement from the university in 1959, he was an innovator in other significant areas as well. As a dedicated teacher, he established one of the first architectural clinics in the country; under his supervision, students were able to supplement their training by gaining experience with actual design problems selected from Brigham's architectural practice. During the World War II years, Brigham became concerned with the need to produce low-cost houses in the building industry. He initiated a series of experiments wih prefabrication, and directed the first sponsored architectural research program at an American university. Brigham's interest in prefabrication continued to be very active in his retirement years. In 1967, after visiting migrant labor camps in California, he created a series of prefabricated units based on a modular system and designed to alleviate the substandard housing conditions which he had witnessed on his visit. Between 1965 and 1970, he developed a series of prefabricated designs for Unit Built Structures, a company formed with local backing. Brigham continued his innovative but sensible design activities until his death in 1977.