What others say.
I can offer my highest recommendation for Christian. After building over 20 of his designs, I am amazed at his ability to always be able to fit a design not only to the lot but to the owners’ lifestyle. All of my clients ABSOLUTELY love his designs and the attention he shows each home. His 3D modeling makes it very simple to show potential clients what their new home will look like. Christian is a true leader in the green and passive movement, a real Craftsman! He is easy to get a hold of and always available to answer questions and concerns.
It’s been three and a half years since we moved into our Gladu-designed custom prairie style house in Chevy Chase, Maryland and we still get “drive-bys” and thumbs up from house hunters and envious neighbors.
Working with Christian was a pleasure and if we ever decide to leave the area, he will be getting another commission, regardless of where we end up.
Christian is talented, principled and truly dedicated to a practical concept of “green” that will complement any design.
Christian is an excellent designer and it has been a pleasure working with him for the past 7 years. We have had the opportunity to work with Christian on hundreds of homes throughout the country and appreciate his knowledge and the creative ideas he brings to the table. Christian puts an amazing amount of time and effort into the relationship with his clients and we have enjoyed being able to be a part of his journey.
Christian has a pragmatic sense of utility inside a paradigm of wonderful design aesthetic. It’s rare to find the creative mind who can share his own spotlight with the sensibilities of an engineer. He has a strong work ethic as relentless as a Nor’easter and a creativity as deep as the Pacific is blue. Plus, he’s just one cool cat…
Christian and his team provide extraordinary home designs. Every home of his we built was front-page worthy. Don’t believe me? I invite you to visit Fairglen Lane in Bethesda, MD and see for yourself. But, my favorite aspect of Christian is his ability to not only design the aesthetically pleasing home, but also the high performance home. He is well versed in energy efficient, environmentally responsible, sustainable building that, even in the 21st century, is STILL hard to find in an architect. Christian keeps up on advancements happening around the world, and can instill that knowledge into your home design. He comes from a construction background and understands the complexities of actually “building” homes, making my job much easier. I learned a ton regarding advanced building techniques thanks to Christian’s company. If you choose to hire him, he will walk you through all of your decisions and explain complex items in a language non-builders can understand. When I build my own home, I will be contacting Christian.”considerably. Incoming and outgoing content filter and attachment blocking is another welcomed feature. And finally the Fail Safe Disaster Recovery has given us peace of mind in the event we ever experience a mail server failure. The service is easy to manage and cost effective considering all the features available.
worked with Christian originally as a client when he worked for NBBJ in Seattle. Christian helped me on (at least) two commercial specialty food stores and some other special projects. Christian started his own firm about the same time I was starting my own specialty food store. The choice was clear to use Christian for my project. His ability to work and take inspiration from nearly any design language – modern or historical – and then frame it into a context that works with the client, space and have it all tell a story is amazing.
Now that I am out of the food world and in the design and architectural world myself – I find that my relationship with him as a client (back then) has made me a better designer and professional today.
If you get a chance to work with Christian – please do so.
Simply put, Christian provided the most efficient, aethetically-pleasing plans I ever built. He was conscientious about building-process waste, energy efficiency and livability within the home. And while he made himself available to answer questions during the building process itself, his plans were very detailed and complete. Christian is the first call I would make at the beginning of any building project.
After working with Christian on the Despard residence, a Frank Lloyd Wright style beach house in Lewes Delaware it was a no brainer to bring him onto the NIST Net Zero project as the Building Information Model designer. Christian brings a well-rounded experience of design and hands on experience that makes him a significant asset to any project. I highly recommend Christian and look forward to working with him again in the near future.
Christian Gladu epitomizes the hard working creative force necessary in the business of architecture. He is inherently a man of great integrity and possess the rare trait of being quality driven. I highly recommend him.
My wife and I set out in 2003 to find an architect to do a new craftsman home. I asked Russell Versaci, author of Creating a New Old House, to refer us to some architects he knew who knew craftsman. We interviewed the 4 architects he sent us to along with some local firms. Christian stood out for his knowledge of construction, personable nature, ability to design to a budget while keeping things looking wonderful. We are very happy with our home and would strongly encourage anyone who is building a home to talk to Christian before hiring anyone else.