Relationships We're approachable, down-to-earth people. We’ve built strong relationships with our clients over the years. Ultimately, this is what sustains a practice. These relationships take the form of conversations, where needs gradually translate into space and physical form. Work Our projects are collaborations between clients, ourselves, our consultants, and builders: a kind of call and response. Client meetings are most fruitful if they are work sessions, followed by a period of our thinking and making. Our work is iterative and evolutionary. We enjoy discussion and debate. Specificity We do not have a signature. We interpret and respond to a set of conditions, a circumstance. Any given context is broad and consists of client, program, history, codes and regulations, geography, topography, vegetation, climate, to name only a few. We come to this endeavor with interests, but without rhetoric, to borrow a rich phrase. Tolerance “All buildings are predictions and all predictions are wrong.” This is perhaps the counterpoint to specificity: allowing for and anticipating change. We seek a loose fit, one that serves a longer term aim, beyond the immediate description of use. Economy We put trust in the time tested. We believe strength comes from understanding and respecting the nature of materials. We appreciate invention, but not for its own sake. We have a fondness for the everyday. Nature As the wilderness continues to recede from view, and human control, or at least cultivation, of nature is increasingly the norm, stewardship becomes a critical aspect of what we do. Energy We believe that as architects we have a critical role in helping to create the conditions of a livable world for the next generations. We want to keep carbon in the ground, not to burn it and contribute to an ever warmer world. We want our projects to address the challenges of climate change head on and design them to be net zero or net positive energy.