Giving Thanks

This year has been one of Winter Street’s most successful years to date…because of that we are very grateful for the people and opportunities that have been afforded to us to help make that happen.  We are also excited to continue to share with you our big ides for the future and look forward to an even more promising 2010.  In this time of thanksgiving, here are some of the the things we are most grateful for:

• We are thankful for our talented and passionate employees, you are the heart of our firm and have helped shape our future.
• We are thankful for all of our projects, small and large, each one has helped us make this a successful year.
• We are thankful for our clients and partners who have trusted us to help make their businesses better through design.
• We are honored and thankful that our leadership, employees and projects have earned so much praise this year.
• We are thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the technology revolution that is taking place in our industry.
• We are thankful for the warmth and love of our families, friends and community.
• …and lastly, we are thankful for the beer in our fridge, the laugh in our hearts and the promise of a new year!

Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Perspectives in completing a project

(by Kathryn Giardi, LEED AP)

A few weeks ago I went to the 62nd meeting at 641-643 Huntington Avenue in Boston’s Longwood Medical Area to attend the weekly meeting for the Harvard Medical School’s newest LEED™ Gold office renovation project. I walked in the front door and was greeted by a woman in dress pants and a nice blouse. She asked me who I was there to see and all of a sudden it hit me, this building was no longer ours. The Principal-in-Charge, Brian and I had spent every Tuesday morning each week for over a year walking through the building in its many stages of construction, surrounded by subcontractors that had been asking us questions, and now all of a sudden we were guests. It was an uneasy feeling.

Technology, Tools + Toys in the Transformative Workplace

(By: Paul Durand    , AIA)

 

Increased economic pressure and logarithmic advances in technology are evolving business processes at a fantastic, and to some, an alarming rate. It’s all very exciting to us as architects. Creation and collaboration, and using new tools are key elements to business success. That, in tandem with sustainable practices, has the workplace becoming a more humane place; and done right it’s vibrant, exciting and more productive.

Change is Good (and Green)

Like most people and firms, we at Winter Street Architects try to consistently advocate for sustainability and develop our “green” culture.  We took the first step in this journey back in 2000 when we saved the historic Newmark building on Essex Street and revitalized it for office and retail space. Since then we have adopted an aggressive recycling and waste reduction plan, promote bike-riding and car-sharing, and employ “green cleaning” professionals.  But today marks our biggest change yet – decreasing our energy consumption and improving efficiency by upgrading our HVAC systems.   With these new units, we anticipate improving our energy efficiency upwards of 40%! Sometimes one of the smallest things has momentous impact.

Supporting Change through Design: Transformative Work Environments

(By: Mary Beth Di Figlia, AIA)

A transformative work environment, I believe, aims us toward a different condition, a new way of inhabiting a place of work and a new way of communicating with each other. It is one which recognizes that what we’ve done even just a few years ago is not appropriate to replicate because so many current influencers were not part of the criteria which gave rise to that solution. A transformative work environment recognizes it needs to act as a flexible conduit for communication and should strive to be an enabling backdrop for the human activities contained within and elsewhere.

Lessons in Being Dauntless

 

Green Business Quarterly’s Fall 2009 Issue features some of the country’s most gallant small business leaders in the architecture world, and Mark and Paul of Winter Street Architects graced the opening section to discuss the ways we stay connected, innovative and aligned to our clients and community.

Check out the terrific article here:
GBQ 2009 – Winter Street Architects Article

Alumni in the making

Winter Street Architects has a rich, professional-level internship program for interior designers and proudly attracts wanna-be Winter Streeters from our favorite local schools every semester.  This fall we feature three fabulous design interns from Endicott College.  We posed our new recruits with questions on their design style, internship expectations and dream project so you could get to know them.  Meet our newest Alumni in the making:

 

Where Do Architects Live?

The online magazine Archimag.de posted a story today on a concept I think few of us actually know well: Where and How do Architect’s live?  Is it likened to the case of the cobbler with the worst shoes or is it rather that an Architect must start anew or renovate at any chance he gets? Paul Durand of Winter Street Architects was posed this very question and opened his 1959 midcentury modern home up for your viewing pleasure. Here is an excerpt of the article, and check out the full feature with more pictures here:

Your Friendly “Glocal” Architect

(By: Allison Brooks)

Defined by Wikipedia: By definition, the term “glocal” refers to the individual, group, division, unit, organisation, and community which is willing and able to “think globally and act locally.” The term has been used to show the human capacity to bridge scales (local and global) and to help overcome meso-scale, bounded, “little-box” thinking

As architects, in many ways we are forced to work “locally” – think “locally” and manage “locally.” In fact, there are rules about it, governing how and why and when this can happen. But in the larger world of this ever expanding global economy, our networks, knowledge centers and collaboration nodes are far exceeding our “local” reach towards the complex “global” system. How does this change the way we “local” architects work?

Biting the BIM Bullet

(by Paul Durand    , AIA)

 

If you haven’t done it by now, you better get to it!  Or fall so far behind you may never be able to catch up.  Bite the BIM bullet.  It’s the future of the building industry and the future is now or just around the corner.  Our firm swallowed the BIM pill way back in 2003, a year after Revit was first introduced to the market by AutoDesk.  What we saw then was what other industries have been doing for years: virtually prototyping and testing designs prior to fabrication.  Economics and compute power had that practice relegated to big business and complex industries, but now the industrial evolution has finally availed these tools to the AEC Industry that allow us to rise up and shed our Neanderthal trappings.  Those who will not adapt and wait, or dismiss it as a passing fad, will surrender to Natural Selection ending up in their own version of the La Brea Tar Pits.