Who Is K. Salowe?
Principal artist and designer Kenneth Salowe earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture in 1984. He is a Certified General Contractor in the state of Florida and an EPA Certified Renovator. He studied French Decorative Arts at Parsons School of Design in Paris and has traveled extensively in search of subject matter and historical context.
Salowe learned the unique art of Composition Ornament from a fifth generation disciple of the great Adam brothers of Scotland and has an extensive antiquarian reference library of period applications. He studied the art of the painted finish in San Francisco under Joann Day in the Isabel O’Neil tradition in the early 1980’s and is a master of faux painting materials, such as exotic woods, marble, stone and much more.
Salowe established Wonderfaux Walls, Inc. in 1984 as a trailblazer in the all but forgotten art of faux painting and maintains an outstanding reputation. “I did not know of anyone who did this type of work in 1984 and wanted faux to be in the name for obvious identity reasons. As time went on we evolved into so many areas of decorative art and architectural embellishment, the faux in Wonderfaux became much less than the impression of our capabilities, thus K. Salowe & Co. is born.”
Personal Philosophy
Notice the stringer detail where it wraps around the the front of the marble for a sculpted finish. Grande Staircase
Architectural design integrity has been a signature philosophy since day one. Our original custom designed Rooms, Estate Pieces and Cabinetry, Panels, Mirrors and Mantles are fabricated by hand, finished beyond compare and are often one-of-a-kind. The detail and quality is sublime.
As a design-build General Contractor, we can develop and coordinate all of the elements of a project from design to completion to minimize the risk and confusion for the end user and to reduce the production schedule by overlapping the design phase and construction phase of a project.
The examples shown on this website reveal a range of possibilities with respect to scale, application, finish and motif. Some preferences lean toward a floral motif. Some applications are best served with an architectural or geometric motif. Period designs of Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Baroque, etc. have their own unique graphic vocabulary. As a general rule, any series of panels, framed mirrors or other elements that can be crated, transported and handled can be fabricated in our workshop and shipped directly to location for installation. This allows the end user the ability to remove the work at any time as with any artifact of value. We have designed and built mantles from scratch and we have modified existing mantles from blah to blow-your-mind! Large scale productions are usually executed on-site where the desired result was just too massive to be produced any other way. The possibilities are without limit.
Why Design Build?
{1} From Wikipedia
The argument for design-build is compelling. In a study performed by Pennsylvania State University in conjunction with the Construction Industry Institute (CII) covering 351 projects in 37 states, researchers statistically proved that the design-build method reduced total project costs by 6 percent and 4.5 percent as compared to design-bid-build and CM-at-Risk, respectively. Cost creep (or change orders) on projects improved by 5.2 percent over design-bid-build and 12.6 percent over CM at Risk. And most importantly, the total delivery time for design-build resulted in improvements of 33 percent and 23 percent as compared to the other two methods, respectively. These are significant results!!
From Why Design-Build? Peter Beck discusses the approach that delivers faster, higher-quality and more cost effective results.
Design-build (or design/build, and abbreviated D-B or D/B accordingly) is a construction project delivery system where, in contrast to “design-bid-build” (or “design-tender”), the design and construction aspects are contracted for with a single entity known as the design-builder or design-build contractor. The design-builder is usually the general contractor, but in many cases it is also the design professional (architect or engineer). This system is used to minimize the project risk for an owner and to reduce the delivery schedule by overlapping the design phase and construction phase of a project. Where the design-builder is the contractor, the design professionals are typically retained directly by the contractor. This is one of the oldest forms of construction since developing from the “Master Builder” approach.
H i s t o r y
The design/build delivery system often cites the original “Master Builder” model used to build most pre-modern projects. Under the Master Builder approach, a central figure of the architect held total project accountability. From inception to completion, the master builder was the key organizational figure and strictly liable to the owner for defects, delays, and losses. The design/build system is a return to some of the fundamentals of the Master Builder approach. For nearly the entire twentieth century, the concept of Design-Build was classified as a non-traditional construction method in the United States, which is the last country to still embrace the old standard of Design-Bid-Build.[1]
{1} From Wikopedia
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