Our Work

When we design a home we are creating beauty to live in. GP

Homes

Home design is by definition very personal. Shaping clients’ hopes and dreams into three dimensions is both challenging and fun. From primary residences to cottages to alterations the process is really the same. It starts with examination of client needs and desires, site and context, and then proceeds to exploration of the creative possibilities. Usually there is one design solution that predominates, sometimes gradually and yet sometimes in that “ah ha” moment. But in the end each completed project reflects the clients’ original vision of beauty. To that end over the course of the design process it is important to develop in clients “their inner-architect.” And many people get pretty good. They just do not know it yet.

Architecture should speak of it’s time and place, but yearn for timelessness. Frank Gehry

Commercial

Restoring, refurbishing and sometimes re-purposing historic structures is a great joy. Preserving locally important buildings is both personally rewarding and professionally gratifying.  This is always our first impulse and question: Can the original structure be adapted in whole or in part? The creative process is actually helped by having a starting building template rather than a blank slate. It is also a welcome challenge to attempt to contribute to local legacy. In the larger symphony of life, that is our small note to play.

Whatever good things we build end up building us. Jim Rohn

Town Planning

Placemaking, shaping the public realm, has always been a private passion. Volunteer effort in my own small town over the past three decades has honed an appreciation for small-town life. Human scale is paramount in the best small towns and dreadfully needed in modern-day urbanity. Winston Churchill said “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” The same can be said of that area between buildings – urban places and public spaces.