Our Ethos

Architecture and design is at a point where many of the great ideas have been done. It’s to be expected; humans have been creating shelter since before civilization. Some firms respond to that pressure with rabid innovation, rejecting what works today for what might work tomorrow. That’s how we end up with solar death ray buildings, leaky façades, and huge disconnects between the intent and reality of using those spaces.

We prefer to draw from the rich canon of successful architecture throughout history and provide counterpoints where appropriate. It’s not an apologist view— there’s a lot that’s wrong with the politics and methods of architecture over time— but there are far more successes. Ideas carefully considered and documented in 1960, or 1760, or 1560 still perform when updated and applied with today’s knowledge. Vernacular ideas that people have always known innately, informing built structures across the world, hundreds of years or thousands of miles from the nearest architect.

We believe that at its core, design should feel right.

It’s your old baseball glove, softly wrapped around your hand. It’s the summer sun on your face. It’s a wood fire dancing in the dark, and the way the smoke gently clings to your clothes as a lingering reminder. It’s a recipe in your grandma’s handwriting connecting you to the past. It’s only an obsession with considering the sensory experience of using a space or object that gets us there.

Materials that are honest and age well. Wood, steel, leather. Concrete, ceramic, glass. Connections are an opportunity for celebration. That’s called telesis— the idea that something is or does what it looks like it should.

The solid clunk of the door closing on a classic Mercedes-Benz. The precise action of a winch when you trim a jib sheet. The cast iron pan that’s been handed down for generations.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of architects clambering to make the next wildest thing, striving to be provocateurs, pushing the envelope of design. Others write theoretical manifestos about abstract concepts like phenomenology or futurism. There’s a place for both of those things. But we prefer to make natural and balanced things, crafted well, thoughtfully tailored for real people.

Leave us a note. We’d love to make something nice for you.