As a young architect, Jay Brotman came to Connecticut in the late 1980s in search of opportunity and a job in his field amid tough times in Texas, where he had grown up. Joining New Haven-based design firm Svigals + Partners, he found opportunity and then some, rising to become the firm’s managing partner and a leading national expert on school design in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting tragedy that happened in the state in 2012.
Brotman helped design the new Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., winning accolades for a sensitive approach that marries an uplifting design with artfully interwoven security features. It has provided a national model for school design in an era of mass shootings, with the architect asked to share his expertise and insights in testimony before Congress on the issues raised.