• Design Works Architecture, Pittsford New York

    Design Works Architecture specializes in timber frame structures – resort buildings, grand mountain estates, big giant Craftsman palaces – as well as renovations of similar types of buildings. Given their location in woody upstate New York (just east of Rochester, near the Canada border) this is not surprising; there’s a very strong Craftsman influence in the area, with the Roycrofters just down the road in East Aurora.

    Principal Charles Smith started the firm just a few years ago, after a history of working with other architects in the New York City area; he started out specializing on the "adaptive re-use of under-utilized structures" and that and his interest in historic renovation paved the way for his current emphasis on the Craftsman style (take a look at the "boat house," a rather unassuming name for a big, beautiful structure, which won an AIA award in 2007). His staff – project managers, architects, interior designers and construction specialists – all seem to be just as dedicated to this site-specific aesthetic, and it really shows in their work.

    We’ve created a Flickr set of images of those projects of theirs that fit most firmly within the Craftsman aesthetic – take a look.

  • Minneapolis neighborhoods profiled in new book

    A recent article by Ellen Tomson in Minneapolis’ Pioneer Press describes local historian and author Larry Millett’s research and subsequent book on Minneapolis’ historic neighborhoods. excerpt:

    Larry
    Millett biked the streets of St. Paul and Minneapolis for three summers
    to produce his latest book, (the) AIA Guide to the Twin Cities, the first
    major neighborhood-by-neighborhood handbook of its kind.

    But the foundation of his 665-page book was decades of
    research and writing about the Twin Cities, first as a Pioneer Press
    reporter, columnist and critic, and then as author of Lost Twin Cities, Twin Cities Then and Now, and Strange Days, Dangerous Nights, all which focused on local structures and events.

    "The book is the result of three years of work and, in a sense,
    it’s the work of a lifetime since I’ve worked here all my life," says
    Millett, 59, who grew up in North Minneapolis and has spent much of his
    adult life in St. Paul.