Mission Statement

What does it mean to have a "signature style"? This term most often applies to a designer who has consistently imposed his or her personal sensibility on their projects.

While, like many architects, I have a strong sense of what I consider to be aesthetically pleasing, this sense, including whatever desire I have to express myself through a project, is subordinated to a set of other concerns. In what way does the site inform the design of the building or space? How does the sun travel through the space? How is that different in December? In June, at mid-day? In April, first thing in the morning? What does a visitor learn as they enter the site? What do they view when they look out from the space? How does the experience of being and working in this environment change over time for the people who are there most often?

How well are the functional requirements, both those stated and unstated, met by the design? For whom was the project built? For whose daily use? In what town or city is the project? In what ways does the architectural expression of the work express the surrounding environment, whether natural or human-made? Does the work express the history of its environment? Does it actively rebel against that history? Certainly, the most appropriate public expression of the project is one based on the mission of the owners, occupants, and neighbors of the work, not on the desires, however compelling, of the architect.

The images selected for this website are intended to demonstrate solutions to a host of considerations, not the least of which is to make manifest the desires and aspirations of the client, working in collaboration with the architect and others.

For this reason, there is no signature style evident on this website. My hope is that the images posted here provide evidence of thoughtful problem-solving and real beauty, which were born in the process of the owner and architect and builder working together to create something unique to that team. Let's work together and create something more amazing, and more appropriate than either of us could have done on our own.