An Ecology of Home
When it comes to
building, we take the long view. We all need shelter. Not long ago,
and for most of history, people built houses with local natural
materials, mainly wood, stone and earth. Each region developed its
own vernacular style in response to available materials, climate
and weather. Local craftsmen relied on skills passed down from one
generation to the next. Houses were built to last. They often
stayed in families for generations, even centuries. They weren't
traded like stocks or commodities. They were home. We build those
kinds of houses -- and renovate the old ones.
We cut our frames and build our houses on the Blue Hill peninsula
on the coast of Maine. Like the rest of eastern North America, New
England's native ecosystem is forest. So we build with wood. But we
don't see the forest as an economic resource to be exploited to the
greatest extent possible. We treat it with respect, reverence even.
We design and craft our buildings in a way that minimizes our
impact on the land and its resources. How? We build with the
materials at hand: pine, oak and spruce from the forest, granite
and slate from the local geology, clay and sand from the soil
underfoot. The "greenest" buildings are the ones that last the
longest, so we rely on materials, techniques, and plans that have
proven themselves over the centuries. We take no more from the land
than we need, designing and building houses of a modest,
comfortable size.
So while there's no
shortage of buzz these days about new green products and
technologies that promise to solve our rapidly escalating crises of
the economy and environment, we think a way of building that takes
no more from the land than it gives back—the only definition of
sustainable that actually means anything—requires more than a
change in our shopping habits. It requires a change in our habits
of thought and culture. Our approach to building begins with the
premise that to settle the land in a way that doesn't degrade or
destroy it means first giving up the frontier speculators'
shortsighted conviction that the land and everything on it belongs
to us, and adopting the native view that it is we who belong to the
land.
We've distilled this ecology of building into a set of principles
that animates our work:
❧
Build for
deep beauty in the structure, materials, and
craftsmanship.
❧
Build
houses to last centuries, not decades.
❧ Minimize heating and
cooling costs with passive solar design, thermal mass, and
super-insulated walls and ceilings.
❧ Draw designs from
vernacular traditions.
❧ Use local, natural
materials, mostly wood, stone, earth, and
straw.
❧ Build
small.
❧ Create a healthy, safe,
non-toxic living space.
❧ Rely on local skills
and creativity instead of energy-intensive industrial
processes.
❧ Make buildings easy to
maintain and alter using traditional tools and
skills.
❧ Honor the landscape and
local ecology.
❧ Waste nothing.
To see examples of how
these principles translate into the various elements of a building,
click on the menu items to the right or contact us by phone or
e-mail.
A building, like
any other work of fiction, should have magic in
it.
