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Sustaining Success

By BusinessWest Staff December 30, 2014

Architecture Sections

Caolo & Bieniek Associates Has Designs on Innovation

Curtis Edgin, principal with Caolo & Bieniek Associates.

It’s not easy being green, but for today’s architects, it’s necessary.

“We’ve definitely had a mix of sustainable-design projects,” said Curtis Edgin, one of the principals of Caolo & Bieniek Associates in Chicopee, noting that some of them have been certified by the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program, but not all.

“Some of our clients seek to pursue that,” he added, “but whether or not they go for that official recognition, they tend to pursue the same design practices.”

LEED, a federal program that lays out stringent, and often costly, guidelines by which new buildings can earn ‘points’ toward different levels of sustainability, has been a driving factor in making construction and renovation projects more environmentally friendly. It involves everything from air quality to the paints and furniture used; from ventilation to energy efficiency, and much more.

The emphasis on green design has seeped so thoroughly into the design and construction industries that even developers who aren’t seeking LEED status are demanding many similar elements, and this is certainly true for Caolo & Bieniek, which is no stranger to sustainable design, including the new Easthampton High School, which features bigger windows to maximize daylight, a photovoltaic array on the roof to harvest solar power, and LED lighting.

“Codes are getting more and more stringent, and continue to evolve,” Edgin said. “Plus, people are more concerned about energy use and will take a long view of things — sometimes pay a little more to have a more cost-effective building throughout its life. That’s what sustainable design is all about. It’s not just about recycling materials and conserving energy; there’s a whole list of things we can do that utilize those defining practices in all our projects.”

Caolo & Bieniek will celebrate 60 years in business next year, providing architecture, planning, and interior-design services across the Pioneer Valley. And Edgin understands the need to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to trends like sustainable design.

“It’s a more long-term view, rather than what’s cheapest on bid day,” he said. “Energy use is the first thing people think of, but it’s much more than that. You can insulate, insulate, insulate, but you still need to get ventilation into it, get fresh air into a very tight envelope.”

Then there’s long-lasting LED lightbulbs, which have become standard practice, replacing fluorescent bulbs. But green design and building extends to the work site itself, from efforts to reduce water runoff from the site to how materials are disposed of.

“When you’re doing demolition, does the debris end up in a landfill, or does it get separated?” Edgin said. “It used to be that everything got pushed off and sent to a landfill. Nowadays, we’re much more careful about what’s going on with these projects. Steel is sent off to be recycled, and maybe masonry is crushed and used for fill.”

The UMass police facility, designed by Caolo & Bieniek, was the first LEED-certified building on campus.

In theory, he added, a project like Easthampton can even turn its green features into an outdoor learning experiences, teaching students about bioswales and solar energy. “You can put a lot of technology into the building.”

For this issue’s focus on architecture, Edgin sat down with BusinessWest to talk about the going-green movement and also other challenges and opportunities posed by what has become a fiercely competitive, fast-moving industry.

Broad Palette

Although it has remained active in private development, Caolo & Bieniek wins about 75% of its work in the public sector, which includes plenty of public school construction and renovation. Besides the completed Easthampton project, Edgin said, “the old Chicopee High School is converting to a middle school, and we’re working with the Mass. School Building Authority on that. We also have a project with Phoenix Academy, a charter school in Springfield, up at the Tech Park, and a handful of smaller school projects for various communities.”

In addition, the firm has long been active with area municipalities, from the ongoing construction of the West Springfield public library to a number of public-safety jobs. “Police, fire, public safety … we have several projects ongoing, some in the study phase, some in the early construction phase,” he noted. Area colleges, including UMass, Westfield State University, and STCC, have also been a reliable source of work, from the UMass police station — the campus’s first LEED-certified project — to renovation and repair work on residence halls.

“We’ve also done projects for local public-housing authorities, and also some private, multi-family development in the Northampton area,” Edgin said. “And we’ve been keeping busy with work for financial institutions — banks and some investment companies.”

The sheer diversity of Caolo & Bieniek’s workload is a hedge against recessions, but Edgin admitted that the scale of the average project has decreased slightly over the past several years. That means more, smaller jobs, “which keeps you very busy meeting schedules, juggling multiple projects, and serving clients. We were very blessed to stay busy over the past 10 years. We attribute that to a good staff and good service. We continually strive to satisfy our clients.”

Caolo & Bieniek has taken jobs as far away as Ohio for a Veterans Affairs hospital, and conducted some far-flung work for the U.S. Postal Service, but most of its signature projects have been in or not far from the Pioneer Valley — from the aforementioned schools and colleges to work for MassMutual, Spalding, Raymour & Flanigan, Polish National Credit Union, Rocky’s, Boys and Girls Club of Chicopee, Subway, IHOP, and many others.

“We don’t go long distances away — generally within an hour or hour and a half radius,” Edgin said. “You can’t give good service in the car, so we stay close to home, and wind up seeing clients in the supermarket, in the hardware store, or out to buy a cup of coffee.”

The auditorium inside Easthampton High School, a recent Caolo & Bieniek project with many ‘green’ features.

The firm has also performed historic-preservation work, which comes with two distinct, and often competing, challenges: restoring buildings according to a client’s demands, or working with a client who doesn’t care about a structure’s historical elements, but local and state historical commissions do.

“Phoenix Academy has been reviewed by the National Park Service, the Springfield Historical Commission, and the Mass. Historical Commission,” Edgin said. “Some of the challenges with these projects is getting everyone on the same page. It’s often about balance, what’s practical.”

Older buildings pose myriad questions, he added. “What are the requirements of the building code in order to reuse or renovate historic properties? What is the use? It may have been built at a time when the code requirements — what the building has to withstand from a seismic perspective, especially — were much different than what they are now. And, of course, what does it cost? There are a lot of noble gestures you can make, but somebody has to fund them.”

Issues with historic buildings have come to the forefront at a time when renovation is more popular than new construction, and investors are taking a hard look at older properties they can rehab, as opposed to building from the ground up. “Not everyone wants new construction or can afford it,” Edgin said. “Sometimes there’s value in older buildings, but you have to weigh the cost of meeting present needs, and that goes back to building codes and what the long-term cost is going to be.”

Old and New

Architects and contractors have long told BusinessWest that clients are more demanding than ever before, and time windows are often compressed. On the other hand, technology has improved project planning and communication.

“With the computers these days, the visualization tools we can use now, we’re no longer showing just flat plans. People often can’t read two-dimensional plans, but now we’re showing them three-dimensional images, what it will really look like,” Edgin said. “But you have to keep up with the technology and the new software, and so does your staff.”

It helps that most of Caolo & Bieniek’s 10 employees have been with the firm for many years, bringing consistency to operations. The same goes for customers. “A lot of our clients are long-standing. Even cities and municipalities, we’ll do multiple projects — it might be a school, a public-safety project, and a library project in the same city or town.”

Customer loyalty is critical at a time when firms from Boston and Connecticut are raiding the Pioneer Valley for work, a trend that has developed and intensified over the past 10 to 15 years.

To keep those clients happy, “you have to plan ahead. Everything moves so much faster these days, but you still have to allow time for the process. It doesn’t just happen. If you want a successful project, sometimes it takes years of foresight, and hopefully clients are thinking in the long term, too, rather than just today, what the present need is. Ultimately, that should shape your decision making.”

That forward thinking is one driving force behind sustainable building, but Edgin said it’s important in any project.

“You have to manage expectations, understand what’s possible and what’s not; you have to be honest,” he added. “People have very lofty goals, but cost is often the driving factor. You try to bring your experience — communicate your knowledge and understanding of the process — as early as possible to the client to determine what the end result will be.”

The goal, of course, is something everyone can live with — both literally and figuratively.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Landmark Decisions

By BusinessWest Staff December 30, 2014

Architecture Sections

Gillen Collaborative Architects Offers a Unique Approach

Several years ago, William Gillen changed his business model to one where architects work independently but market themselves as a team.

When William Gillen created Gillen Collaborative Architects Inc. in Amherst, he based his business model on decades of honed experience. “There is no payroll here, so there is no pressure to generate a bill. If one of us wants to spend 24 hours working with a group, we do it,” he said, noting that the two registered architects under his umbrella are self-employed and can work independently on their own projects, or collaboratively as a group, while sharing resources and information from their own areas of expertise.

The trio, which includes Gillen, Carol Vincze, and John Krifka, have more than 100 years of combined experience, and venture into territory that most architects don’t have the time or interest to explore.

For example, when Krifka began working on a contract to renovate the Berkshire Family and Probate Court in Pittsfield and restore its north façade, he came up with an idea to create a documentary that would benefit the public, the city, the state, and groups interested in historic restoration.

After he spoke to city officials about obtaining a grant to pay for a detailed video production of the restoration and renovation, UMass graduate student John Dickson heard about it from the Pittsfield Historical Commission and received permission to document the work as part of his thesis. In addition to a written document, he created a seven-minute video with Pittsfield Community Television titled “Conserving the Old Berkshire Athenaeum,” which can be seen on YouTube.

Since the work on the courthouse is not yet complete, he is also working on another version, which he expects will be at least an hour in length. The finished product will be shown on public-access TV and will serve as a tribute to the artisans who created the 1876 building as well as those who painstakingly matched intricate patterns on the crumbling stone.

“City officials feared the project would disrupt parking and traffic to and from local business, so the idea was born partially to help to help establish liaisons,” Krifka said, explaining that he met with the Town Council and businesses owners to promote the video because he believed it would generate a lot of interest. “Stone structures aren’t built anymore, and I knew this was something that wouldn’t happen in Pittsfield again, so I really wanted it to succeed.”

A photograph was taken of every stone that was removed from the building, and Dickson interviewed a number of artisans about their restoration techniques, including a stained-glass specialist who described the process of reconditioning and replacing missing glass from original windows.

“People will learn many interesting things from the video, such as the fact that you can take a damaged stone with a decorative pattern and build up the missing part with modern materials,” Krifka said, adding that Dickson shared his work with the Western Mass. Historical Commission Coalition at its meeting in July.

“Bill, Carol, and I like to generate ideas,” he added. “But if we were just employees, it wouldn’t be in our interest to do things like this.”

Carol Vincze (right, with John Krifka) says the freedom she has at Gillen Collaborative Architects serves her well in her work.

Vincze agreed and said sharing space with co-workers is a growing trend that allows people to socialize while working independently or in collaboration with each other.

She explained that the freedom she has at Gillen Collaborative Architects served her well when she redesigned the Amherst Survival Center. It serves more than 4,400 needy individuals each year, and Vincze was determined to see firsthand how it used its existing space before she began forming ideas for a design.

“I visited the center at least six times and ate lunch there. I also watched people come and go, and interviewed members of the staff who told me it was important to build a feeling of community,” Vincze said. “They thought they needed six rooms for activities, but it quickly became clear which areas could be combined.”

As a result, she was able to create a workable design, assist with the client’s fund-raising efforts, oversee the bidding and construction administration, and do everything else required to finish the project on time and on budget.

Business Changes

Gillen, who farms 20 acres and owns several real-estate firms in addition to his architectural company, changed his business name several times and had a number of partners in the course of more than five decades of work.

In 1969, the Boston architectural firm that employed him asked him to move to Amherst to take over a satellite office, and all went well until the recession of 1975.

“A moratorium was placed on most state projects, and it knocked the wind out of our sails,” he recalled. “There was not enough work for the architectural firm to keep its Amherst office, so they allowed me to take it over.”

He named his new business William Gillen Architects, finished the projects started by his previous employer, and began paying the employees’ salaries.

A short time later, he formed a partnership with architects John Kuhn, Christopher Riddle, and Dennis Gray, and the business was renamed Gillen, Kuhn, Riddle and Gray Inc.

The firm grew quickly, and although Kuhn and Riddle left in 1988, Gillen and Gray stayed together and kept 10 of 30 employees. In the early ’90s, they were joined by former classmate Kevin Omarah, and the firm’s name changed to Gillen, Gray and Omarah Architects Inc.

“But Omarah died, and Gray moved to Salem, and I became Gillen Architects again; by that time, I knew I needed to be more than a one-man band to do sizeable projects,” Gillen said, explaining that it is risky for a client to do a project with only one architect.

In the late ’90s, Kathleen Ford joined him from New York City, and Ford Gillen Architects was born. The duo worked together for a decade, but after she left and Gillen found himself on his own again, he began collaborating with Vincze because he needed help to complete some large state projects.

“Several years ago, I changed my business name and model again to better reflect what I was doing and market more effectively,” Gillen said, adding that he formed a collaborative because he wanted to eliminate the stress of constantly having to meet payroll. “I created a model where we are all independent, but can also work together and market ourselves as a group.”

However, each of the architects has their own niche.

Gillen specializes in historic preservation and unpretentious architecture that is harmonious with a neighborhood. Meanwhile, Vincze is LEED-certified, and Krifka has done a number of institutional and commercial projects for nonprofit organizations.

Gillen provides space inside a building he owns on Main Street as well as a full-time receptionist who acts as an administrative manager and does all of the paperwork.

“We share resources and networking, but since each architect has their own business, there is no set time for any of us to arrive or leave. But we’ve been very fortunate; architecture is very competitive, and we’ve been awarded several half-million-dollar contracts,” he told BusinessWest, outlining projects that include renovations and updates to buildings at UMass Amherst and county courthouses.

A year ago, the trio was hired to create a master plan for St. John’s Episcopal Church in Northampton, which is located in the Elm Street Historic District.

“We marketed ourselves as a group, but Carol is the project manager,” Gillen said, noting that the renovation plan is in the design stage and includes adding an elevator, a social hall, and office space.

Vincze spent untold hours at the church, helping members of the building committee generate ideas.

“We work really well with committees made up of lay people. In fact, we spend more time figuring out what people need and how much it will cost than any architectural firm I have ever worked for,” she said, adding that she is also involved with a design for a new, large mixed-use building in South Amherst that is under construction.

Gillen’s project history is storied and includes the conversion of the former Northampton railroad station in 1980 into restaurants, as well as the 2002 design of the Strong Avenue shops and condominiums in Northampton, which won accolades from the city. Meanwhile, Krifla’s previous employment included stints with three architectural firms in New York.

Their combined experience has served them well. In fact, over the past three years, the trio has undertaken at least 100 projects.

“Many of them were small, but they were punctuated by the $3.5 million Pittsfield District Courthouse renovation and restoration and a $2.5 million upgrade to the Gardner District Courthouse,” Gillen said. “We also just completed the preliminary work to put a new boiler room in the Pittsfield Superior Courthouse, which will provide heat for the entire district.”

He added that he and designer Lisa Lindgren, who has also begun working collaboratively with him, are creating plans for a house in Hadley.

Attention to Detail

Vincze said one thing that sets Gillen Collaborative Architects apart from other firms is that the architects see their projects through from start to finish.

“We maintain continuity with our clients from the time of the first interview to opening-day ribbon-cutting ceremonies and the years beyond,” she told BusinessWest.

Gillen added that the architects take pride in being accessible, even when it involves little or no notice. “Yesterday at 7:48 a.m., a masonry contractor called me and asked if I could meet him at St. John’s in 40 minutes. I wasn’t dressed, but I got there on time. Then I was told a general contractor was going to remove the staging on the courthouse in Pittsfield over the weekend and needed our architects to take a close look at it, so I volunteered to go there on Friday so the contractor could meet his schedule.

“The bottom line,” he stressed, “is that, if one person is successful, we are all successful.”

Best-laid Plans

By BusinessWest Staff December 30, 2014

Architecture Sections

A chart of area architecture firms

Click here to download the PDF chart

Commercial Real Estate

By BusinessWest Staff December 30, 2014

Architecture Sections

For Sale, For Lease, a listing of available commercial properties

Click here to download the PDF chart

Fine Lines

By BusinessWest Staff July 15, 2014

Architecture Sections

Kuhn Riddle Continues to Build on a Solid Foundation

By KEVIN FLANDERS

John Kuhn, president of Kuhn Riddle Architects

When local architects John Kuhn and Chris Riddle began their first project together in 1978, they never imagined it would lead to a thriving partnership.

In fact, they had no idea where it would take them. But success, they’ve learned, is a lot like architecture — you start off with a foundation and steadily build your way upward.

Kuhn and Riddle made a risky decision back in 1978, quitting their jobs after receiving a $500 commission to complete a sketch for the Northampton Armory. Kuhn admits it wasn’t one of their most calculated moves, but looking back on it almost 40 years later, he realizes their decision built the foundation for what would eventually become Kuhn Riddle Architects (KRA), one of the most successful firms in the area.

“We were working for a firm in Springfield at the time and carpooling together,” recalls Kuhn, president of the Amherst-based firm. “We’d been talking about what it might be like to get work on our own, and then we saw an article about the building being renovated in Northampton. If we’d known better, who knew what would have happened?”

Fast-forward 36 years — past the initial years of uncertainty, past the fire that engulfed one of KRA’s early buildings, past the painstaking process of building not only structures but relationships — and the firm is prospering in a challenging climate. With 16 employees, it isn’t the largest or smallest firm around, which Kuhn believes is conducive for success in projects of varying scales.

“It’s been a spotty market, and we’ve been fortunate to stay fairly busy,” he told BusinessWest. “Being profitable in a competitive industry is a challenge, and you have to work hard to keep work coming through the door. We’re big enough that we can handle larger projects, but small enough where everyone still wears a lot of hats.”

Kuhn estimates that the firm completes between 50 and 100 projects a year, many of them involving major renovation and reuse efforts. This year, KRA designed renovations for the building that formerly housed the First Baptist Church of Amherst — which now serves as non-academic offices for Amherst College — in addition to renovating an Easthampton mill into affordable housing units and redesigning a Springfield building for National Public Radio.

With dozens of old, once-bustling buildings now sitting dark and abandoned, New England towns are perfect for renovation projects that save structures and money. Like many area architectural firms, KRA has mastered the ability to modernize and repurpose old buildings that would otherwise remain blights on their communities and eventually be torn down.

“Redevelopment and adaptive reuse of buildings brings a lot of work for us,” said Kuhn, who remembers being excited about architecture ever since he took a mechanical drawing class back in high school. “Oftentimes, a building will be renovated for a completely different use. The Amherst College project is a good example; it was once a church and is now used for office space.”

For this issue and its focus on architecture, BusinessWest goes behind the scenes at KRA to see how it takes concepts off the drawing board, or the computer screen, as the case may be, and makes them reality.

Growth — by Design

The building in which Kuhn and his staff work each day is also a testament to the power of redevelopment. The Amherst Cinema Building at 28 Amity St., which houses the KRA offices, Amherst Cinema, Arise Pub and Pizzeria, GoBerry Frozen Yogurt, and HB Financial, among other businesses, has become a major recreational and commercial hub in downtown Amherst. But it wasn’t always that way — many residents recall the building’s former distress before KRA completely overhauled it in 2006.

“The building was an empty black hole, a dead zone in the middle of town,” said Kuhn, who described the 28 Amity St. renovation as the most personally rewarding project in his career. “We were able to renovate it into a mixed-use building that everyone can enjoy. It was rewarding for us to transform a building that served no purpose into a vital part of the town center.”

The renovated Amherst Cinema Building is now one of the highlights of downtown Amherst and home to KRA’s offices.

For local business and civic leaders, the project was not only a restoration, but a reclamation. Don Courtemanche, executive director of the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, described the work Kuhn and his staff put into the building as a major revitalization effort for the town and region.

“The building had fallen on hard times and was in desperate need of reinvention,” said Courtemanche. “Now it’s one of the most active parcels of real estate in downtown Amherst thanks to John’s design and vision for what it could look like. He took the project on full speed ahead, and the building has become a mixed-use, vibrant powerhouse of downtown activity.”

The project also emphasized Kuhn’s belief in the importance of strengthening cities and towns at their cores by renovating and redeveloping in downtown sections, as opposed to taking on multiple projects calling for new construction at the fringes of towns that offer few geographical benefits.

‘If it’s old and broken, fix it up’ would be a fitting summary of KRA’s stance on redevelopment — and at 28 Amity St., arguably the new heart of downtown Amherst, the benefits and opportunities are endless, even after normal business hours.

“The building doesn’t go dark at five o’clock like a lot of downtown buildings. With the cinema and the shops, it’s alive even on weeknights and weekends,” Courtemanche added.

Yet another advantage for Kuhn to renovating the building that would house his firm’s offices was the ability to include details to enable his employees to maximize their production each day. With spacious rooms and high ceilings comprised of the original beams and trusses, the building has a historical yet modern air, far removed from the standard office environment.

“It was a great opportunity for us to design our office and create new workspace,” Kuhn said.

Building Solid Relationships

A successful career can often distance business leaders from their early adversities, but Kuhn still remembers the struggles he and Riddle endured, the ones they had to persist through in order to build their firm into its current incarnation. Their first few projects were completed out of a cramped, rented space in 1978.

“That’s how we got started,” said Kuhn, “in someone else’s office” — until they partnered with Bill Gillen and began to establish an identity in the community. In November 1989, a fire totaled their office and forced the staff to move to another building. On several occasions thereafter, business threatened to dry up, but through it all Kuhn and Riddle stuck together and used their struggles as learning tools.

“We always had a solid relationship, both professional and personal,” Kuhn said of Riddle, who is now retired. “We were different, we worked well together, and I don’t think we ever said an angry word to each other in all of those years.”

This rendering shows an interior view of the renovated Fuller Block in downtown Springfield, which will house National Public Radio.

One of the most important lessons Kuhn and Riddle learned during their challenging years was the value of building lasting relationships. Recently, KRA has completed several projects for Yankee Candle, a relationship that has strengthened with each new endeavor. Local high schools and universities are also a wellspring for annual construction opportunities, as they are constantly expanding and evolving to better serve their student populations.

“For us, it’s more about looking for clients rather than projects,” said Kuhn, whose portfolio also includes the $22 million expansion and renovation of Amherst Regional High School and extensive work at River’s Landing Complex in Springfield. “We like to establish long-term relationships with companies and institutions. A primary source of work for us has been repeat customers.”

It’s always difficult to predict the future when it comes to the construction industry, but Kuhn anticipates housing will dominate KRA’s focus over the next five years. In a bustling college town like Amherst where apartment units don’t go vacant for very long, student housing is always a hot topic, but it’s become even more of a focal point in an economy that has seen student costs soar. There will also be an increased need, Kuhn believes, for affordable-housing opportunities for families living in and around Amherst.

“Housing of various types will continue to be a challenge, especially student housing and affordable housing,” said Kuhn, whose firm is also working on a project at Springfield’s American International College, as well as a renovation to the Common School in Amherst. “Housing for retirees is also a huge, untapped market.”

Following the recent completion of a successful affordable-housing project in what has been a busy 2014 for KRA, the firm is eagerly anticipating the opening of 43 units at Olympia Oaks in town. The conversion of abandoned mills, warehouses, churches, and other defunct buildings into affordable-housing units and senior-living facilities has become a popular construction approach over the past 10 years, one that KRA and other firms have taken advantage of with their expertise in adaptive reuse.

“It’s nice to be as flexible as we are in the marketplace,” Kuhn said. “We can handle a range of different projects.”

Drawing on Experience

No matter how big or small the project, Kuhn and his staff are ready to tackle it, not simply with the goal of renovating or constructing buildings, but continuing to transform promising real estate into vital assets for area communities.

In a nutshell, this is what the company has built on that foundation that Kuhn and Riddle laid all those years ago — and continue to build today.

Urban Renewal

By BusinessWest Staff July 15, 2014

Architecture Sections

Jablonski DeVriese Architects Strives to Preserve the Past

Steve Jablonski, left, and Brian DeVriese say the Northeast offers a rich lode of opportunity in preservation and renovation work.

Their business cards read ‘preserve, adapt, renew.’ That’s the philosophy Stephen Jablonski and Brian DeVriese bring to each of their architectural projects — whenever possible, anyway.

Take, for example, the Clifford A. Phaneuf Environmental Center at Forest Park, which has housed the Environmental Center for Our Schools (ECOS) program — utilized by thousands of Springfield public-school students and teachers annually — since 1970.

The structure was built in the 1930s as a warming house for ice skaters, Jablonski said. “It was built by the Springfield DPW, right after the Depression, but it’s basically sat there for 70, 80 years without any renovation whatsoever.”

Hence the $2.5 million expansion and renovation expected to go out to bid to contractors soon. The plan is to update the building and bring it up to safety codes; provide space for revenue-generating activities during after-school hours, weekends, and the summer months; and incorporate ‘green’ technologies such as a hydro-geothermal HVAC system; cutting-edge insulation; and energy-efficient windows, all of which will contribute to the project’s LEED Silver rating.

“It’s a fairly major expansion and renovation,” Jablonski said before detailing how the design reflects all three elements of Jabonski DeVriese Architects.

“We’re preserving it, maintaining its character; we had to submit documentation to the Mass. Historical Commission,” he explained. “We’re adapting it because it wasn’t originally designed as an educational facility. And we’re renewing it by adding on and preparing for the future.”

Nearby, however, another project at Forest Park does none of those things. The firm has designed a new storage facility for the Bright Nights displays, which Spirit of Springfield had been keeping in a ramshackle horse barn.

“Preserve, adapt, renew isn’t practical in this case because all the posts are rotted, and there aren’t any character elements to this horse barn,” Jablonski said, although the new structure will include classrooms for a skills-training center for the manufacturing and contstruction trades, part of a federally funded workforce-training program that will involve local unions, Springfield Technical Community College, Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy, and the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County.

So, yes, there is some ‘adapting’ going on.

“It’s kind of a niche market that’s prevalent in Western Mass., and in the Northeast in general — historical-preservation projects, adapting, preserving, renewing,” Jablonski told BusinessWest. When he and DeVriese merged their solo practices in 2011, “we figured, well, everyone seems to have a specialty. We were trained to do anything. But people want to know if you have a specialty now.”

Simply put, he said, “we preserve old buildings. It’s something that’s really starting to grab hold in society. Preservation is good. People are moving back to urban areas. Mid-size cities that have architectural character, like Springfield, are on their way up, no matter what people say about the city. I live in Springfield, I was born here, and I’m a big fan of Springfield. That’s not to say that problems don’t exist, but it’s on its way up. ”

When some people see a neglected building, DeVriese added, their first instinct is to knock it down, but he and and his partner see potential — not just to maintain and enhance the strucutre’s architectural heritage, but to improve its environmental impact. “After all,” he said, quoting noted architect Carl Elefante, “the greenest building is the one already standing.”

For this issue’s focus on architecture, Jablonski and DeVriese talked with BusinessWest about some specific ways in which they’ve preserved some of the region’s heritage by putting their names to some truly unique projects.

Together Again

Jablonski had been working as a sole practitioner in Springfield since 1995, and DeVriese had managed a solo practice in Shelburne Falls since 1997, when they began collaborating on projects, notably the design of the Museum of Springfield History at the Quadrangle — a classic adaptive-reuse project, since it’s housed in a former Verizon office building.

“Steve approached me about helping with the Springfield Museums project, and that was a significant project for both of us,” said DeVriese. “We started doing more and more together over the years, and in 2011 we incorporated as partners. We were very, very busy at the time.”

For example, the museum project led to Springfield College hiring the firm for its complete renovation of Judd Gymnasia, renamed the Stitzer YMCA Center. For that design, Jablonski DeVries received the Paul E. Tsongas Award from Preservation Massachusetts, as well as the Springfield Preservation Trust Award for restoration and stewardship.

“For me, there was a lot more activity in this area than in Franklin County, an opportunity to work on larger projects with a longer duration,” DeVriese said. “I like Steve, and he’s great to work with.”

As for Jablonski, he said he’d occasionally been frustrated by a reluctance by state and municipal officials to award large contracts to solo architects — and he wanted an occasional day off. “For me, taking on a partner made a lot of sense, just having the ability to take a vacation and share the burden of production.

“To be honest, a lot of people advised me not to do it,” he continued. “To them, it was counterintuitive: ‘you started it, you should keep it to yourself and benefit from it.’ What they don’t realize is keeping it to yourself is not strategic; sure, you can keep it to yourself, and not get bigger projects, or run yourself into the ground because you can’t take vacations. You can have it all to yourself, but life isn’t as good.”

The pair made headlines soon after their merger when Springfield College — a long-time Jablonski client — tapped the firm to work with Erland Construction of East Windsor, Conn. to repair three residence halls hard hit by the June 2011 tornado.

The pair went through every room in every dorm and itemized all the damage to help the contractor develop a repair estimate. Once they decided the structures were salvageable, the architects and contractors had a significant challenge: to complete the work in 10 weeks, in time to house returning students.

A rendering of the new Clifford A. Phaneuf Environental Center at Forest Park, which houses an environmental-education program for Springfield students but hasn’t been renovated in more than 70 years.

The goal was not just to repair, however, but to improve the dorms where possible. After seeing several architectural renderings, in addition to replacing windows and doors torn apart by the twister, the college decided to replace the original building exteriors with higher-quality, better-insulated panels than what had existed before.

Ten weeks and $5 million after the twister ripped through, little evidence remained of anything other than a summer remodeling job. That project earned a Rebuilding Project of the Year Award in 2012 from the New England chapter of the Construction Management Assoc. of America, which selected the effort from all renovation and modernization projects under $10 million.

College Try

Architectural design for college campuses is nothing new for the firm. “We’re identified really strongly with three or four sectors,” Jablonski explained, including higher education; municipal and government work, which includes schools, libraries, park buildings, and museums; and historical buildings of all kinds, which can cut across many sectors.

“It’s been harder than Brian and I ever thought to break into new markets,” he said, “but we both decided that we can’t put all our eggs in one basket — like the city of Springfield — especially when we have an economic downturn.”

That said, “I’d say about 90% of our clients are repeat customers,” he noted, citing Springfield College and the city of Springfield as two of the most long-standing, going back 20 years. “That says we have to be doing something right. It’s not just what drawings you do; it’s showing up on time and having some flexibility, because there’s always an issue, always some problem, so you have to be flexible. When we get repeat customers, we’re pretty sure we’re doing something right, or they’d go somewhere else. There’s definitely competition in the Valley.”

Jablonski said the firm is willing to do residential restoration, although they don’t actively market in that arena, but there isn’t enough of such work to make a living doing it exclusively. Still, “when someone approaches us, obviously we do it. We recently got a really nice, very large total rehab in Longmeadow.”

And they don’t limit themselves to high-profile jobs, recently taking on, for example, several dentistry offices and small projects for the city of Northampton, as well as preparing to tackle a cold-storage warehouse with a commercial kitchen on Warehouse Road in Springfield for the city’s school system, which recently expanded its free-lunch program to all students.

“I enjoy working with municipalities professionally and appreciate the quality of people involved in local government,” said DeVriese, who has been a selectman in Heath for 15 years. “I’ve done a lot of work with small towns over the years, so it’s nice to know they can come to us to get their problem solved.”

Meanwhile, the Springfield Museums project caught the attention of the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., which tapped Jablonski DeVriese to design an addition to its athletic hall of fame.

“It’s not the first time someone called us up because they’d seen our work, but it is a good example of how we must be doing something right,” Jablonski told BusinessWest. “There is a lot of complexity in this business, and it’s nice to get some confirmation from someone looking at something and saying, ‘ooh, that’s nice.’”

Building for the Future

Things are looking equally good at the Springfield offices of Jablonski DeVriese, where the partners are growing a promising future.

For one thing, they’ve hired two junior architects. Nirati Shukla, who earned a bachelor’s degree from the Center for Environmental Planning & Technology in Gujarat, India, and a master’s from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, is certified as LEED AP and specializes in sustainable design. Marcel Alvarez immigrated from Ecuador and is currently a U.S. citizen. He is a graduate of Holyoke Community College and the architecture program at UMass Amherst.

And, as both Jablonski and DeVriese repeatedly stressed, there’s no shortage of opportunities to turn inadequate or neglected buildings into something that will reflect the future while respecting the past.

“Smart people are finally putting two and two together,” Jablonski said. “Instead of a continuous cycle of building new, let’s preserve it, adapt it, renew it.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Charting Progress

By BusinessWest Staff September 24, 2013

Architecture Sections

Demand for Architectural Services Grows in Private Sector

Siegfried Porth says he has seen an upswing this year in additions, renovations, and new homes.

John Kuhn says the number of projects on his firm’s books has increased over the past year. However, “I don’t expect to go back to the glory days,” added the president of Kuhn Riddle Architects in Amherst, adding that clients today are more cost-conscious, conservative, and careful than they were prior to the economic downturn in 2008. “But, lately, business has been good.”
Walter Cudnohufsky of Walter Cudnohufsky Associates Inc. in Ashfield agrees, and describes the upturn in business as noticeable and positive. “We have a number of new residential projects,” he said, noting that the jobs are significant because work in real estate dried up for a long period of time. “Things began to pick up last year and have gotten better this year, and our work now also includes municipal and industrial projects.”
After weathering a difficult period, Tom Douglas of Thomas Douglas Architects Inc. in Northampton is also busy again. “Things started to even out about six months ago and really improve, and we have more work now than we can handle,” he said. “People are more willing to spend, and it seems as if access to money has become easier. It takes longer to get funding in place, but people are doing it. We’ve done design work for a lot of restaurants, and there has also been a significant increase in residential work.”
Siegfried Porth of Porth Architects in Easthampton concurred. “Right now I am straight out,” he said. “There has definitely been a big upturn in demand in the last year for new residences, additions, and reconstructions. And some of the jobs I have are major — $300,000 or $400,000 home additions. Ultimately, it’s cheaper to add on if you like where you live and have enough land.”
Bruce Coldham said that, although housing has always been his firm’s mainstay, jobs at local colleges have helped sustain the workflow over the last year. There have also been renovations of homes and office space, as well as projects requested by institutional investors who own multi-family dwellings and want to improve energy efficiency or stay in compliance with changing building codes.
“They are not all poster projects,” said the principal of Coldham & Hartman Architects in Amherst. “But business has been improving slowly and steadily, and we keep getting clients. Some of our colleagues were hit harder than we were, and many architects have had to move from one firm to another.”
Kuhn agrees. “Some people were hit worse than others,” he noted. “We felt the effects of the downturn, but not that severely. Work has been steady, but it’s very competitive.”

Staying Solvent
Indeed, the uptick in project volume hasn’t come about overnight. Several years ago, Porth said, there was so little work that 60% of the architects in Boston were laid off, and many firms went out of business.
And Douglas referred to 2009 and 2010 as “pretty lean times. We had to lay off one person and reduce some employees to part-time, but we had enough work to make ends meet. We were fortunate to get a few new jobs back then.”
One project, involving the renovation of three buildings in Greenfield, was made possible due to historic and new-markets tax credits. Others combined volunteer labor and paid work, including Northampton’s Academy of Music and Forbes Library. “I helped them raise money,” Douglas said.
His firm has also done much work at Smith College, although those jobs dwindled in 2009 and 2010. But the situation wasn’t disastrous, as Douglas used the time to renovate the building he purchased in 2009 that houses his business today.
In 2010, he was hired to design a renovation of the Garden Theater in downtown Greenfield. “Unfortunately, they were unable to pay the bulk of the fee,” Douglas recalled. “It was a very difficult year.”
The picture was similar across the board.
“It was like being on a rollercoaster,” said Douglas. “We would have an incredibly heavy workload for six months, then spend six months not knowing if we would get work. It was very, very difficult to project further than four to six months out.”
There were also an untold number of architects seeking employment. “They were willing to work part-time, and there was a lot of great talent out there. But it was very difficult to project how much work you would have,” Douglas said.
Cudnohufsky also suffered. He had to let several employees go and said it took “heroic efforts” to save his company.
Kuhn said the entire construction industry was hit, and in addition to the loss of any work in certain sectors, many projects were put on hold.

Tom Douglas says business is increasing, and so is the diversity of projects his firm is tackling.

Coldham said he is happy that he was able to retain employees, thanks to programs that allowed them to collect partial unemployment benefits. “It meant we could keep everyone until work resumed,” he said, adding that the extra time off allowed at least one employee to complete a graduate degree, and once things improved, he was able to add two people to his staff.
And although the outlook is brighter, many architects feel it is too early to project whether demand will continue to rise.
“But people are building and investing in their properties again,” Porth said. “Things didn’t look very good last Christmas, but this has ended up being a very fine year. Business has been slowly picking up, and right now I have 40 jobs in process.”
Douglas agreed. “The work is slowly starting to pick up,” he said, adding that his firm is now doing a lot of design work for restaurants and hotels.
Still, there are no guarantees. “There has been a definite improvement, but it is not meteoritic by any means,” Coldham said.
Kuhn concurred. “When people take a big hit, it takes years for confidence to come back,” he said.
“Everyone is a little more gun shy.”

Varied Workplace
Today, architectural services are being sought for diverse projects, another trend that bodes well for an industry that saw many sectors fall back or nearly shut down during the recession.
“We just bid on a renovation in North Adams for a group of railroad warehouses,” Douglas said. “We’ve also done three or four restaurant interiors in the past six months, and are wrapping up a new conference-center building in Hadley. We designed a new restaurant in Worcester, and are working on the renovation of a conference center for Smith College and a project for Northampton Arts Trust, which will include a new theater, performance space, and galleries in a building they are purchasing.”
Porth’s working portfolio includes projects in Holyoke and the conversion of an Easthampton tractor-trailer building into a multi-use structure. “We’re also converting an old warehouse into multi-use space and renovating a five-story factory building for commercial purposes,” he said, adding that the projects are large and include new walls, electrical, heating, and other improvements.
Porth is also the architect for the Eastworks Mill in Easthampton. “Half the residential units on the top floor are rented, and we’re starting phase 2,” he said, explaining that the units were designed as live/work spaces so entrepreneurs can operate home-based businesses in them.
Porth is also involved with ongoing projects for Open Square in Holyoke and has four major residential projects — additions and renovations — on the books as well.
“A lot of people are adding in-law apartments or family rooms, and we’re building a huge wine cellar in one home,” he said. “Plus, we just got work today on a new office building in Easthampton. There will be offices on the first floor and residential space on the second floor.”
Other jobs include designing a 160-by-120-foot metal building in Holyoke that will be used to service trucks and a new, two story office building in Florence.
Cudnohufsky is also busy. He began work on Main Street in Great Barrington in 2009, and that project has been ongoing. Other large regional projects include Monument Mills in Housatonic, which consists of several buildings totaling 250,000 square feet, and the design of a major structure in Fitchburg. He also has jobs in New York and Boston. “We have a whole range of work on historic properties, which gives us a really nice mix.”
Markets that have undergone a revival include the restaurant business. “We’ve seen a real upswing in people wanting to put money into them recently,” Douglas said.
And other sectors are growing as well, Porth said. “People are buying commercial buildings in Northampton, Westfield — everywhere in the Valley. Holyoke is up and coming, and people are buying mill buildings in Easthampton, so there is a lot of ongoing activity.”
Coldham’s firm tends to work with clients creating spaces heavily populated by people, such as schools, libraries, and offices. “If people like the space they are in, they tend to stay at their jobs longer and are more productive, which are benefits that come from high-performance buildings,” he said.
His company’s projects range from a new development with more than 20 homes to the transformation of a 100-year-old, five-story mill building in Lawrence into 60 residential units.

Moving Forward
Designs today almost always involve green-building concepts, and one noteworthy trend is the demand for reasonably sized, energy-efficient homes.
“The new generation wants to be green, and we are drawing a lot of smaller houses, due to the cost,” Porth said. “We used to design McMansions that were 5,000 or 6,000 square feet, but today the trend is to go smaller. People want energy-efficient homes that are no larger than 2,500 square feet.”
Cudnohofsky founded and ran the Conway School of Landscaping Design for 20 years and says his firm has always been at the forefront of sustainable ideas and projects. He told BusinessWest that green building has been fueled by revisions in building codes that keep the technology moving forward.
Douglas agreed, adding that salespeople tout how much recycled material their products contain or where their furniture was made. “Material suppliers volunteer the information. You don’t even have to ask about it.”
Kuhn said the combination of new stretch codes and people’s sensitivity to energy conservation has resulted in a new norm. “The standards keep getting much more stringent,” he said, adding that new developments have gone from LEED to net-zero building to the Living Building Challenge, which encompasses the most rigid green-energy initiatives that can be put into place. However, few projects that meet those standards have been done locally, because the work is complex and not financially feasible for most clients.
Coldham & Hartman has completed several co-housing projects and earned recognition for innovative work across the nation. It is one of the only local firms that has built zero-net-energy homes, which generate as much energy as they use. “We’ve done four or five of them,” Coldham said.
However, some jobs continue to be expansive as Baby Boomers seek modifications to their homes. For example, Porth designed a 2,000-square-foot addition for an aging couple who wanted a master bedroom on their first floor. “People are also putting in elevators so they can stay in their homes,” he said, noting that some families are selling their parents’ homes and creating space for them via renovations or additions.

Changing Climate
Kuhn believes changing trends will continue to shape the architectural industry. They include a focus on building within walking distance of downtowns, which has occurred in communities and cities such as Amherst and Northampton. “It’s a more green way to develop,” he said.
It’s also one that promises ongoing work for architects who have weathered the storm of the past few years and are now reaping the rewards for their perseverance and resourcefulness.
For a sector that feels the swings in the economy perhaps more than any other, times are better, and the arrow is pointing up — and firms are intent on making the most of their opportunities.

Building on a Legacy

By BusinessWest Staff September 24, 2013

Architecture Sections

Juster Pope Frazier Has Designs on Continued Growth

Kevin Chrobak says the name Juster Pope Frazier is a brand that resonates within many sectors of the economy.

Kevin Chrobak joined the then-Shelburne Falls-based architecture firm Juster Pope Frazier in 1983, after a short stint with rival Architects Inc. and just a few years after graduating from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
He would stay with the company, eventually buying out the men whose names appeared on the letterhead — Norton Juster, Earl Pope, and Jack Frazier — as each one eased into retirement, and in 2006, he assumed the title of principal architect.
While this is now truly Chrobak’s company, he says he’s never thought of changing its name or even adding his name to it. And he gets rather philosophical when explaining why.
“This is a brand — in some sense it’s like Xerox,” the Palmer native said with a laugh, while explaining how and especially why he believes the name Juster Pope Frazier, or JPF, as it’s also called, resonates within the industry and certain sectors of the economy, such as education. “I never felt the need to have my name on the door.”
But Chrobak is doing more than keeping the firm’s signage consistent. He’s also working hard to “extend the culture,” as he put it, of the first-generation partners, and incorporate their values into the company.
“Jack, Earl, and Norton established this business under the notion of doing very good work for very good clients — and also keeping their own lives in mind, their employees’ lives in mind, and keeping things reasonable,” he said. “They were kind, caring people, and very creative. I’ve tried to maintain that same point of view.”
That culture he described is now embedded in the company’s mission statement. Written on the backs of the company’s T-shirts — and on the home page of the firm’s website as well — it has three simple tenets: ‘live inspired, do good, and create beauty.’
“Norton’s the ‘live inspired’ aspect — he wrote The Phantom Tollbooth,” said Chroback, referring to Juster’s children’s adventure novel, published in 1961. “Jack was ‘do good’ — he was always very cognizant of giving back — and Earl was ‘create beauty.’ So that mission statement really guides the practice and how we behave with each other and with our clients, but it also reminds us of culture; maintaining that continuity is important.”
Still, while paying homage to the past, Chrobak and his staff of eight are obviously focused on the present and future. They’re consistently adding new projects to a diverse portfolio that includes everything from the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst to the headquarters for the Channing L. Beete Corp. in Deerfield; from the fire station in Longmeadow to the new science building nearing completion on the campus of Elms College in Chicopee.
That brand Chrobak mentioned earlier has certainly helped the firm win a succession of projects at Nichols College in Dudley, St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury, and the Holyoke Health Center, among many other clients, most of which are repeat customers.
But a bigger factor, and one that helped the firm ride atop the destructive wave otherwise known as the Great Recession, has been its ability to work with clients to create a vision and then take it off the drawing board, he said.
This is a process, he said repeatedly, and one that can be challenging at times, but is generally rewarding for those on both sides of the table.
“It’s fascinating work, and clients really enjoy the process — they feel excited by it,” he explained, adding that he expresses that emotion himself. “It can be a very creative collaboration, and I think it’s something that’s very unique to their lives in many instances.”
For this issue and its focus on architecture, BusinessWest talked at length with Chrobak about his firm’s history, relationship-building efforts, and designs on continued growth.

Lines of Work
As he discussed the many nuances of his chosen field of architecture, Chrobak contrived a few analogies to describe the all-important relationship between the firm and the client — and the process for making a vision become reality.
“I like to think of architects as the director of a movie,” he explained, while relaying one of his often-repeated views on how a successful collaboration works. “The client is the producer, they create the story, but we’re the director that helps them realize their vision.
“Another analogy I use is that we’re translating French, or any other foreign language, into English,” he went on. “We’ll interpret something in their language and put it into our language. We’ll take their words and create a building with three-dimensional form.”
He even compared what goes on between a client and an architect to a long-term relationship, noting that, from the start of design talks to the end of construction, a firm can be on a specific job for three or four years or more.
Summing all this up, he said architecture is as much about design as it is about discussions between the firm and the client about what’s important to the latter and how they identify what Chrobak called the “icons of their site.”
“We view clients as being two things — a physical entity and a site,” he told BusinessWest. “In our thinking, the site is as much a client as the actual [business]client. You try to draw influence from what people are telling you, but you’re also drawing influence from where you’re building as well.”
As examples, he cited two local projects: the Eric Carle Museum, which was designed after a good deal of dialogue and collaboration between the firm and the picture-book artist whose name is on the building, and the nearby Wesley United Methodist Church in Hadley, which has a look borrowed from the tobacco barns that helped give that community its identity.
“It’s based on classical Christian basilica form,” Chrobak said of the church, “but it’s detailed in a manner that’s evocative of the classic Connecticut Valley tobacco barns. You might be tempted to say that a church and a tobacco barn don’t go together, but within that context, it makes all the sense in the world.”
By mastering the art of translating clients’ words and carrying out the role of director, Juster, Pope, Frazier, and, yes, Chrobak were able to build and refine that brand the principal architect described earlier.
Its standing in the market not only helped enable the firm to ride out a recession that nearly crippled many firms, but has positioned it to thrive at a time of stern competition for both public- and private-sector work.
Juster Pope Frazier once did quite a bit of both, said Chrobak, noting that, in the former category, the firm has designed a number of schools, fire stations, and other municipal facilities. But in recent years, as competition has intensified and margins have become razor-thin, the firm has focused its energies almost exclusively on the private sector.
And this strategic move was a big factor in JPF’s ability to essentially avoid the whitewater of the recession and stand today as a larger company, revenue-wise, than when the slide began.
“We didn’t really experience the downturn that everyone else did,” he explained. “We always had a client base that wanted to build because costs were down during those times; contractors were aggressively seeking work, and so their numbers came down dramatically.”
One of the clients looking to take advantage of those circumstances was Nichols College, he said, adding that the institution has become JPF’s biggest customer. The firm has undertaken a number of projects for the school over the past decade, and is essentially redesigning the core of the campus.
Initiatives have included two new suite-style dormitories, a new, 30,000-square-foot student center, an academic building, a dorm renovation, landscape improvements, and other work, with more likely in the future as the school continues an aggressive building program.
Nichols is a prime example of how the firm has been able to gain repeat business from clients, said Chrobak, adding that several institutions fall into this category, including St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury — JPF did work there 15 years ago and is currently designing an arts and academic building for that campus — and Elms College.
The new science building at the Elms will be dedicated this fall, he noted, adding that its design reflects and respects the architecture that defines the campus and especially its signature building, Berkmans Hall.
“That’s a classic, beautiful building built in the middle of the Great Depression,” he said. “We built adjacent to it, and because it’s such a distinctive and beautiful piece of architecture, we felt we needed to be somewhat reverent of that work and not impose our own look.”
This brings him back to the notion of relationships, collaboration, and those analogies he created to describe how a firm and its clients should work together to create something meaningful and that works at the site in question.
“I’m particularly in tune with this because I grew up locally,” he said, referring to the importance of designing a building that works for the client and the location. “It’s a privilege to create buildings that are going to be there for years in a place where you grew up; it’s not something I take lightly.”

Blueprint for Success
That sentiment also applies to the culture — and the brand — established by the first generation of ownership at JPF, said Chrobak.
The name over the company’s door — figuratively, because it’s not there literally — represents more than the three original partners, he told BusinessWest. It reflects a way to do business and live a life.
And so does the mission statement.
More than words on a T-shirt or copy on a website, that statement shows how determined this firm is to recognizing its legacy and, more importantly, building on it.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Plans for Success

By BusinessWest Staff September 24, 2013

Architecture Sections

A chart of area architecture firms

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Design and Demand

By BusinessWest Staff May 7, 2013

Architecture Sections

Architects Are Seeing the Light — and So Are Their Clients

Kevin Chrobak feels that the public is increasingly motivated by the industrial design of products from companies like Apple and manufacturers with a high design aesthetic.

Kevin Chrobak, principal architect for Juster Pope Frazier LLC, doesn’t have a single light on in his conference room, or in his spacious office area that seems to ooze creativity. He doesn’t need any on a bright day.
His Northampton-based studio, located in a former brick mill building dating back to the 19th century, has the large full-story windows reminiscent of a time when the workday was governed by the sun.
“A lot of the concepts of this building, and others like it, was that you wanted a lot of daylight and a lot of volume of space, so the notion of ‘day lighting’ was a concept from before 1900,” said Chrobak. “For example, its 8:30 in the morning and there’s not a single light on, and it’s perfectly adequate.”
Day lighting, a new buzz term in the architectural realm but a concept that actually grew out of the Industrial Revolution, is back in vogue. But not just because of the cool aesthetics; rather, designers are drawn to the reduced costs for lighting, heating, and cooling when advanced, energy-efficient windows replace those that are more than 100 years old — which, in Chrobak’s case, they did.

Greg Zorzi, left, and Christopher Novelli see a return to city living in downtown structures, prompted by the younger generation’s demand for intelligent use of existing resources.

In addition to redesigning old or historic structures, Jonathan Salvon, principal at Kuhn Riddle Architects Inc. in Amherst, has seen a trend toward more-modern design styles. His firm is known for designing the new UMass Amherst marching band building, the Amherst Police Department headquarters, and the new broadcast facility for New England Public Radio (NPR) in the Fuller Block on Main Street in downtown Springfield.
“Organic forms, in general, are currently quite popular at the moment with generally modern architecture,” said Salvon. “And I mean modern with a capital ‘M.’
He was speaking of a rebirth of architectural Modernism, which roughly spanned the time between World War I and the early 1970s, and is generally characterized by simplification of form and an absence of applied decoration.
While Chrobak doesn’t see a specific ‘look’ today, he does see imitation, and more client attention to the carefully designed look of popular commercial products.
“There’s a saying that some of the best ideas out there are stolen, but you do see influences start to creep from one project to another,” said Chrobak. “There certainly is influence that runs from magazine to magazine, and I think the public is becoming more cognizant of design as being important in their lives.”
This, he feels, is motivated by the industrial design of products from companies like Apple, and manufacturers that have a very high design aesthetic. “That has helped to bring higher awareness of design in all different disciplines.”
Other advances have taken the act of designing architecturally to a whole new level. The advanced technology of computer-aided design, more affordable green-building products, urban awareness, and understanding new work/life behaviors have all contributed to expanding the choices that today’s architects have to make, both in form and function.
As the construction industry claws its way back from the most severe recession in decades, BusinessWest talked with area architects about the trends, and attitudes, shaping their industry. Overall, they are invigorated to see the public more demanding of creative design and energy-efficient function, which is giving way to a new generation of sustainable and smart structures that will reshape Western Mass. buildings, and even cities, in the years to come.

Trickle-down Effect
Any talk these days of architecture or construction will immediately become a conversation about green building. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a voluntary, market-driven program that provides third-party verification of green buildings. It provides building owners and operators with a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green-building design, construction, operations, and maintenance solutions.
Even locally, as with every new program, costs eventually do come down, due to competition and becoming an industry standard.
“There was a time when doing a LEED building was a premium cost, but the industry has ramped up to meet the demand,” said Salvon. “So it’s not the premium that it used to be.”
Greg Zorzi, president of Studio One Inc. in Springfield, agreed.
“We’ve done a couple of LEED projects recently, and I don’t think there was a substantive percentage more that the owner paid to get a LEED building,” he said. “And if they did pay a bit more, they’re going to achieve that back in the energy savings.”
Globally, on the leading edge of the green-building movement is a strategy called biomimicry: using patterns in nature, particularly in biological systems, to inspire innovative and more-efficient designs within architecture and engineering. While global interests are not immediately adopted by those in the Western Mass. area, or even the New England region, the efforts are important.
Christopher Novelli, an architect at Studio One, sees biomimicry at this juncture as more limited to what he called ‘paper architecture’ — student work or architects’ projects that are mostly experimentation with the design of buildings that will never get built.
But design movements have to start somewhere, and there’s a trend, Salvon said, toward more attention to organic design or, rather, more care toward natural materials in either the form of the building or in the materials within. His examples: bamboo flooring, grass or bark-like wall coverings, and unique ceiling products that mimic outdoor scenery.
But to get some of those designs takes experimentation and advancements in technology, specifically computer-aided design and computer-driven routering that didn’t exist a decade ago.
Zorzi told BusinessWest that the future emergence of unique types of biomimicry, or new organic-design products, requires students and architects to write computer code and bypass the traditional design process. Thus, the design is then carved out from large-scale computer-aided machines.
“The computer code has its parameters and sort of creates itself, but that opens the door to experimenting with new forms, which find their way into more traditional building here,” Novelli added.
“Where the more experimental buildings tend to be constructed,” Zorzi added, “is based on where the money is — Dubai, Tokyo, Singapore, for example.”
Salvon agreed. “Some of the newer elements are due to high-end computer-modeling software with deep-pocketed backers, and allow for fabrication that is different than conventional construction.”
While this extremely advanced technology has not yet entered into mainstream architecture and construction, it is an emerging technology that will change the way architects and contractors work in the future, Zorzi added.
“But, yes, computers are influencing everything,” said Chrobak, whose firm is known for its designs of the unique Eric Carle Museum in Amherst and the Elms College Center for Natural and Health Sciences, which is currently under construction in Chicopee.

Staying Power
“A common theme in our market is that a lot of work is renovation work — so how do you take a new design aesthetic and work it into an existing building that may be more than 100 years old?” Salvon asked rhetorically, as many of his clients have as well.
“Not just design, but sustainability has become extremely important, maybe moreso due to the downturn of the economy; folks want their building to be more efficient,” he said.
One of the more obvious energy-efficiency products has been glass.
Its usage has typically been a symbol of energy inefficiency, as heat exchange in large, translucent surfaces is higher than in insulated walling. But new glass systems are changing that.
As an example, Zorzi noted ‘curtain-wall’ systems that are the essence of the high-performance envelope. While not a new concept, what the systems are made of, and what they do now, certainly is.
“Years ago, you wouldn’t be able to achieve having full walls of glass,” he said. “There would be so much heat loss or gain, and as stylish as it is, it wouldn’t be functional.”
A glass wall today would have a ‘double-skin’ system — two layers, filled with a gas that allows the building to passively cool itself. But the quality of the glass, the curvature, and the ability to withstand wind and hold snow loads, said Zorzi, is what makes him marvel at buildings such as Springfield’s new federal courthouse on State Street, which makes heavy use of glass.
In his work, Chrobak also sees a lot of adaptive reuse, and he feels it is motivated by clients’ project costs.
“If you’re building with a shell, it’s often cheaper than building from scratch, so the concept of ‘reuse and recycle’ applies to buildings as well.”
Cities, in general, are seeing an enormous amount of reuse of former manufacturing buildings as well as old apartment buildings.
Both Zorzi and Novelli see a return to city living in those structures, prompted by the younger generation and their awareness of, and demand for, intelligent use of existing resources and the environment.
“Some people think that suburbs are the next ghettos,” said Zorzi. “When you see that return back to the city and how it relates to architecture in a single building, you have to shift your design focus to create more multi-purpose spaces, mixed-use, and live/work spaces.”
An example is more office and retail on bottom floors and living spaces above. Technology allows people to work from anywhere, and many companies are allowing employees to work from home, which has increased overall demand for office areas in new designs, regardless of the client’s age. “So the designs that we’re doing have to relate to that,” said Novelli.
But city living involves not just the redesign of one building these days, said Zorzi, but entails the entire urban environment around that building, which is a demand of the public.
“I think a good local example of that is the proposed casino,” Zorzi told BusinessWest. “We have MGM Springfield with an outward-facing real urban focus with livened streetscapes and retail shops, and bringing in the local businesses is part of that flavor. Then you had Penn National with an inward-facing focus. You look at the traffic patterns — the traffic comes in, gambles, and leaves.”
“The MGM proposal is very indicative of the trends that we’re seeing, more of a focus on the urban element, rather than the one isolated building,” Novelli pointed out.

Creative Economy
What the future holds for architects is a series of new challenges and opportunities.
The American Institute of Architects has put forth the 2030 Challenge, which Novelli described as a step-by-step pledge for architects to design ‘net-zero’ buildings, or those that literally produce their own energy through mini-turbines, solar power, high-performance building products, and, of course, smart design.
“There are always new materials and new approaches,” said Salvon. “And a lot of manufacturers are putting a lot of money into R&D to develop new materials to either meet existing demand or create new demand.”
And as the competition heats up for more sustainable products for both new construction and adaptive reuse, the prices will flatten out and the heyday of those net-zero buildings is nearer than ever.
In the meantime, architects continue to have designs on continued growth in an industry where the future is as clear as a glass wall.

Elizabeth Taras can be reached at [email protected]

Art and Science

By BusinessWest Staff May 7, 2013

Architecture Sections

Architecture EL Seeks a Balance Between Beauty and Function

Kevin Shea says his firm has stayed busy in its first five years with a very diverse roster of jobs.

Kevin Shea says many kids grow up watching their dad build a garage or repair a shed. In his case, helping out around the house inspired him to pursue an equally hands-on career.
“I remember seeing old blueprints, and that was of interest to me,” said Shea, owner of Architecture EL Inc. in East Longmeadow. “Architecture actually ended up fitting my personality, that blend of hands-on and creative, mechanical and artistic. It worked out to be a good balance.”
After graduating from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, he took a job with a small architecture firm for 18 years before deciding in 2008 to strike out on his own.
“I grew up in the Hampden-Wilbraham area, so this is pretty much my region,” he said. “Basically, we’re a small office built on the idea of direct design. The final product is never far from my hands.”
Architecture EL — the acronym stands for Environment Life — is essentially a two-person operation, though the firm will contract to bring on a handful of others for big jobs. “We’re trying to grow to the point where we can bring in some additional staff,” Shea said. “It’s just a matter of waiting for the economy to stabilize.”
In fact, the company has never operated in a thriving economy, launching in 2008, just before the financial crash kicked off the Great Recession, from which the region and nation are still trying to recover. But Shea — who repeatedly used the word ‘fortunate’ to describe the past few years while speaking to BusinessWest — said he has kept consistently busy, with dozens of projects on the docket now, albeit most of them small.
“Our work is commercial, municipal, residential … in Western Mass., most architects are jacks of all trades. And with the economy the past few years, you do whatever comes along.”

Built for Success
Shea has weathered an uncertain economic climate, he said, by focusing on personal service — working closely with clients from design conception through construction and occupancy — but also on that flexibility and diversity he mentioned.
“Historically, my base was strongly commercial. It started with medical and multi-family residential projects,” he said, adding that Architecture EL will take on most any type of proposal. “We’re small, so we’re pretty fortunate to have a nice volume of work and some good diversity.”
He detailed some of the firm’s recent and ongoing work to demonstrate that variety, from a demonstration center alongside the jet-engine fabrication facility at Pratt & Whitney in Middletown, Conn. to the Wilbraham Grange building on Main Street, which is being retrofit into a single-family residence.
In addition, “we’re currently bidding for improvements to the Hatfield Town Hall; we’re expanding their primary town offices and meeting rooms, and we also did a study for an elevator and accessible entry throughout the building. We also did a study for the Historical Society in hopes of fitting out the upper level for a museum.”
He also cited work for the Westfield Museum, which is moving into a historically registered building that once housed a whip manufacturing company. “We’re in the first phase — building envelope improvements, masonry restoration, windows, slate roof — and heading toward the next phase, which will really define the museum space. There’s a mix of historical elements, and it has its own host of issues, but it’s a neat little project.”
Almost all the firm’s assignments come from direct referrals, “people who are actually interested in doing the work, not just guys fishing.” The project log is mostly private work, but there are some public projects as well.
“It’s something different all the time,” he said, “but, at the end of the day, it’s all about solving a problem. Sometimes it’s the budget, sometimes it’s technical, sometimes it’s historical or accessibility … the reality is, it’s all about solving problems with a design solution.
“I think we do a pretty good job pulling everything together — the artistic and the technical sides,” Shea added, noting that some firms specialize in the technical side of the industry, while others were trained at universities that stress esoteric design concepts over functionality.
“My background is strongly rooted in creative design, but also supported by buildability and what will serve the client,” he explained. “And, of course, we look to be as forward-thinking as possible in energy-efficient design solutions.”
‘Green’ design is, of course, a hot trend in architecture and construction these days, but not only on large projects. For instance, homeowners and small businesses affected by the freak weather events of 2011 were also looking to rebuild in greener ways.
“There was a definite uptick with the hurricanes, tornadoes, and snowstorm; people were looking at better insulation, generators, better fuels; solar is certainly making inroads.”
The firm designed a few rebuilding jobs in Monson after the twister devastated that community, Shea recalled. “I felt fortunate to help people rebuilding their house or their business. Those were great jobs because people were really struggling, fighting with their insurance companies, and I felt good coming in and helping them, being part of the solution rather than part of the problem.”

Early Inspiration
As he works to meet client needs and eventually grow Architecture EL into a larger company, Shea recalled that his early life inspired not just his career choice, but his work ethic in general.
“Growing up, we were a small family that lived modestly. We used to fix everything that broke; we didn’t call people,” he said. “If we needed something built, we built it. Now, everyone hires someone to mow their lawn.”
He said a “Berkshires can-do mentality” was instilled in him early on. “It helped me all the way through my career. In college, I worked construction in the summer. They told me I was the first college kid who knew how to work. I’ve been working all my life, building and fixing things, very hands-on, and that just translated to how I tackle my business.”
And that work ethic is paying dividends today. “We get hired based on who we are, our experience, and our contacts,” he said. “We provide a great level of service and quality control. That’s what people are looking for.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Blueprint for Success

By BusinessWest Staff May 7, 2013

Architecture Sections

A chart of area architecture firms

Click here to download the PDF

LEED by Example

By BusinessWest Staff June 19, 2012

From left, Aelan Tierney, Charles Roberts, and Ann Wills Marshall

Architecture Sections

Architects Increasingly Focus on Eco-friendly Design

From left, Aelan Tierney, Charles Roberts, and Ann Wills Marshall have all worked on LEED projects at Kuhn Riddle Architects.

New England Environmental (NEE) is an Amherst-based consulting firm that specializes in environmental assessment, restoration, and management. Oh, and setting a good example.

“We saw that project as sort of a laboratory for the kind of work they do, almost an exhibit of sorts,” said Ann Wills Marshall, an architect with Kuhn Riddle Architects in Amherst, which designed NEE’s new headquarters in Amherst with the sort of ‘green’ features that fit the company’s mission.

“They can take clients through and show them what a bioswale is, and a rain garden that uses all native plants and doesn’t require irrigation. It has a tremendous amount of green space,” Marshall noted.

The development will earn Platinum certification — the toughest-to-attain rating — from LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a program developed in 1994 by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to encourage environmentally friendly and energy-efficient design, construction, and operation of buildings.

And New England Environmental, which uses both geothermal heat and photovoltaic solar panels for energy, is only one of Kuhn Riddle’s recent LEED projects. Others include the George N. Parks Minuteman Marching Band Building, a 15,000-square-foot facility at UMass; the Ken Burns Wing of the Jerome Liebling Center for Film, Photography, and Video, a 6,700-square-foot addition to the facility at Hampshire College; and the Northeast Veteran Training and Rehabilitation Center in Gardner — which, like NEE, boasts both geothermal and photovoltaic energy.

In fact, LEED has become a major buzzword in the architecture and construction world; the state has mandated eco-friendly design on many projects, while individual cities and towns are increasingly seeking out the long-term benefits of energy-efficient, environmentally non-invasive design as well.

“It’s an involved process,” said Charles Roberts, a principal with Kuhn Riddle. “First, the client has to decide what they want to do, then we sit down with the user groups and our LEED consultants and basically go through the checklist typical for all projects and see what points are attainable. It’s important to do that as early in the design process as possible.”

Those ‘points’ are awarded according to a development’s adherence to five key areas: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.

Sustainable site development includes the reuse of existing buildings, when possible, and preservation of the surrounding environment. Water conservation may include the recycling of gray (previously used) water or the installation of catchments for rainwater.

Energy efficiency can be increased by orienting buildings to take advantage of seasonal changes in the sun’s position and by the use of alternative energy sources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, or water.

Meanwhile, developers are encouraged to use as much recycled or renewable materials as possible, or those that require the least energy to manufacture, are locally sourced, or are in themselves recyclable. Finally, indoor environmental quality emphasizes how the building user feels in a space and involves ventilation, temperature control, and the use of nontoxic materials.

New England Environmental incorporated both geothermal and photovoltaic energy on its LEED Platinum project.

“Good architecture has always been environmentally responsible,” Roberts said. “Development and land-use patterns create stresses on the environment, and as buildings become much more complicated, LEED is kind of an effort to try to think about these pressures and minimize them.”

However, they should not get in the way of basic aesthetic appeal, said Aelan Tierney, an associate with Kuhn Riddle.

“While it’s important to focus on sustainability,” she said, “it’s also important to remember that buildings should be beautiful. So the form can still be beautiful if it’s a green building, or a LEED-certified building. I think there are some people out there who are so hyperfocused on sustainability that they forget about the aesthetics. In our firm, they’re equally important to us.”

Breaking Ground

Other architects are saying the same. Among them is Jim Hanifan, a principal with Caolo & Bienek in Chicopee, which recently completed the new UMass police station, the first LEED-certified building on the Amherst campus, but very likely not the last.

That project earned Gold status, just under platinum in the USGBC’s rating system, which is based on the points assigned for green compliance. Further down are Silver and simply ‘certified.’ The police station features a geothermal heating and cooling system drawing heat and cold from the earth.

“We’ve also got the Northampton police station,” Hanifan said. “They’re going to occupy the building in a couple of weeks, and that’s targeted for LEED Gold as well.”

Another of the firm’s jobs, the new Easthampton High School set to open in 2013, has earned certification from Massachusetts CHPS (Collaborative for High Performance Schools), a LEED-like green-building program for the Commonwealth. Among the considerations are bigger windows to maximize daylight, a photovoltaic array being installed on the roof to harvest solar power, and LED lighting. “It’s similar to LEED in its requirements,” he said of the CHPS designation.

Hanifan said building owners, whether governments or businesses, want to know the long-term savings built into an investment in green design — which can be costly up front. “You’re trying to balance improvements to a building’s system with what the projected payoff will be. Maybe you’ll spend $250,000 on improved mechanical or electrical systems, and you try to project out how many years it will take to pay that back.”

Tierney said the owners of the Northeast Veteran Training and Rehabilitation Center took this into account when they had 28 geothermal wells and more than 8,000 square feet of electrical panels installed. “It’s a large initial investment, but in the end, they’ll save money. In a lot of cases, it’s easier to get capital funding than it is to get operational funding.”

Added Marshall, “I think there’s a leap of faith you have to take, knowing you have these upfront costs, but they will pay for themselves in a very short time.”

And the initial costs can be significant, Hanifan said, noting that some LEED points are easier to come by than others, and not every type of point is attainable. “Some points you won’t get, depending on the building design,” he said. For instance, a developer can earn points for tearing down an existing building and reusing the site for a new structure. “But if it’s a clean site, there’s no way to get that point.”

The LEED certification process itself is costly, which is why some cities and towns will put a priority on green design, but not go for the certification, he added. “So you’re getting the payback for sure and achieving the intent of a LEED project; you just don’t have a plaque on the wall that says you achieved it.”

The Old College Try

The Liebling Center project at Hampshire College is a good example of a broad mix of LEED points, Roberts said, from the use of native plants to cutting-edge air-quality-monitoring systems, to white, reflective surfaces to keep the building cool. It also gained points for its location along a bus route and the installation of bike racks and showers, all of which encourage earth-friendly commuting.

“It’s a good example of a project done on a modest budget,” he said, “and just by doing pieces of all these things, were were able to achieve LEED Gold.”

Hampshire College has been pursuing eco-friendly development for some time, and other area schools have done the same. In fact, the U.S. Green Building Council recently opened a local branch on the UMass campus.

“The university has been working to expand its green-building commitment for more than a decade now,” said Ludmila Pavlova, a senior planner at the UMass Campus Planning Physical Plant, who started the branch. “Here, we can provide education, outreach, and information to the general public about the LEED rating system and green building.

“It’s really important that people who use the rating system talk to the general public, network, and learn together,” she continued. “It’s great to have a location where people looking into green building can come to learn how to become proficient in green building, and turn around and help their communities as well.”

UMass recently made a commitment to build all new structures to a minimum of LEED Silver, and the state already requires all publicly funded buildings of at least 20,000 square feet to be 20% over baseline in terms of energy efficiency. All of which makes plenty of sense to Pavlova.

“People live in buildings and spend most of their time in buildings,” she told BusinessWest. “Forty percent of our energy is embodied in buildings. If we want to improve the environment, one of the first basic places to improve it is in the places where you work and live.

“Our buildings constitute such a huge investment, and so much of our ongoing operations and capital costs go into facility maintenance,” she added. “And so much of our health depends on how buildings keep us healthy — or not.”

That’s just one more reason businesses and communities are increasingly choosing to build green — and often taking the LEED while they’re at it.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Blueprints for Success

By BusinessWest Staff June 19, 2012

Architecture Sections

A chart of area architecture firms

Click here to download PDF

The Old College Try

By BusinessWest Staff January 31, 2012

Stephen Jablonski (right) and Brian DeVriese.

Architecture Sections

Recent Projects Embody Firm’s Commitment to ‘Preserve, Adapt, Renew’

Stephen Jablonski (right) and Brian DeVriese.

Architects Stephen Jablonski and Brian DeVriese have crafted an impressive legacy of projects involving schools, libraries, museums, parks, and a host of other structures. But rarely have they been tested by the time constraints they faced last summer when Springfield College tapped them for repairs of three tornado-damaged residence halls. The resulting success story is a lesson in teamwork, setting goals, and adapting to change.

When Stephen Jablonski and Brian DeVriese arrived at Springfield College on June 2, the morning after a devastating tornado ripped through the city, they were shocked by the extent of the damage on campus.
But they had no time to lose.
Due to a relationship that stretches back a decade and includes the award-winning Stitzer YMCA Center, college officials quickly tapped Jablonski DeVriese Architects to work with Erland Construction of East Windsor, Conn. to repair three hard-hit residence halls — International, Reed, and Massasoit — as well as a damaged power house.
There was one big question, however: could the job be done in a mere 10 weeks, or would students expecting to live in those dorms need to find other lodging for the start of the fall semester?
“We worked very carefully with the Springfield Building Department because we didn’t want anyone saying we were going too fast,” Jablonski said, looking back on a hectic summer that, indeed, saw all three dorms ready for students by mid-August.
“The Building Department worked excellently with us,” he recalled. “They could easily have said, ‘are you kidding? The whole city was hit by a tornado; we’re not going to approve anything for six months, but we’ll take it under advisement.’ They were there on site the first day.
“As far as we know, International Hall was the tallest building completely damaged in Springfield,” Jablonski added. “We’re not aware of another taller one in the direct path of the tornado, and it was completely repaired in two months.”
Jablonski and DeVriese sat down with BusinessWest recently to explain how that came to pass, and how the project fits into the philosophy of a firm committed to preserving the past while adapting to the often-harsh winds of circumstance.

Plan of Attack
The first step, of course, was turning that initial shock into a well-defined strategy.
“We had to do damage assessment of the dormitories,” DeVriese said. “We went through every room in every dorm and itemized all the damage. In all three, we had a list of every room and all the categories of damage that we could use as a starting point, helping the contractor develop an estimate for what it was going to take to repair the damage.”
Erland personnel secured broken window openings with temporary closures. But a big thunderstorm rolled through less than a week after the tornado and damaged most of those quick fixes. Meanwhile, Jablonski said, “we had to ask, ‘can we salvage these buildings at all?’ We had an intuition that they were definitely salvageable.”
DeVriese, who recently forged a business partnership with Jablonski, noted that the tornado had blown many of the windows out of the building, ripped solid-core doors off the hinges, and damaged much of the furniture. “Light fixtures were hanging down from the ceilings, and there was a tremendous amount of water inside the building. That was mainly International Hall; there was some of that damage in Massasoit and Reed, but to a lesser degree.”
Once they decided the structures, even International, were salvageable, the architects and contractors had a significant challenge: to complete the work in time to house returning students.
Even as cleanup crews were just starting to remove fallen trees, Jablonski said, meetings were quickly convened involving college officials, insurance carriers and agents, and the architects and builders, during which all parties agreed to cost estimates and orders of new doors, windows, furniture, exterior metal panels, and other materials.
Jablonski credited the college’s insurance carriers for acting quickly — though they did have a financial incentive to do so.
“We said to the insurance company, ‘do you want to approve this list right now and get this stuff ordered, or run the risk of students going to the Sheraton to live off-campus?’” — an insured expense no one wanted to trigger, he said. “Even though they brought in their own experts, we shared a lot of our analysis with them, and that was the success of it. We hit the target and did not have any delayed openings at all.”
After seeing several architectural renderings, the college decided to go beyond simple repairs by replacing the original exterior of the building with higher-quality, better-insulated panels than what had existed before, Jablonski said.
“Most people feel it looks a lot better now than it did, no question,” he added. “The windows are much more high-quality, and we put in much better insulation; there was no insulation behind the enamel, so we put in a nice air barrier. It used to get a lot of wind-driven leaks.”
R&R Windows of Easthampton provided the aluminum replacement windows and new aluminum panels, while the new doors came from Hardware Specialties of West Springfield, Collins Electric of Chicopee made electrical repairs, and Harry Grodsky Co. of Springfield repaired damage to the HVAC system.
“One thing I’ve been impressed with about Erland — they don’t just order windows and start installing them,” Jablonski said. “They put one in, test it for water penetration, for air leakage; actually an engineering company comes to look at it and blast it with moisture and high wind pressure. And if it doesn’t pass, they have a meeting with everyone about what they did wrong, and keep doing different configurations until they pass the test.”
As new windows, doors, and exterior panels were installed, floor tiles were replaced in only a portion of rooms in order to stay on schedule (floors in other rooms were repaired, cleaned, and waxed). And 10 weeks and $5 million after the twister ripped through, little evidence remained of anything other than a summer remodeling job.

Study in Teamwork

The design of the Stitzer YMCA Center at Springfield College has earned multiple awards for Jablonski DeVriese Architects.

Last June, DeVriese, who had a company in Shelburne Falls, joined Stephen Jablonski Architects as a partner. “Brian and I worked together for 10 years; he was a consultant with me on projects,” Jablonski said. “But we decided it would be a stronger company to have a partnership, so we formed a corporation.”
“My experience has been mainly restoration and renovation types of projects,” DeVriese said, “and quite a number of municipal projects, which requires familiarity with public bidding laws. So I think that, combined, we cover pretty much the whole gamut, public and private.”
With the name change came a new discussion of where the firm should focus its energies.
“As a young architect, I was trained to design everything, and I guess I believe in that,” Jablonski said. “But when we formed a corporation, we took the opportunity to really look at what our strengths are. And it seems like almost all the projects both Brian and I worked on individually, even going back to being employed by other architects, were renovations and restorations. So we came up with the motto, ‘preserve, adapt, renew.’ I think that has a real selling power in New England because there’s so much that needs preservation, adaptation, and renewal.”
The next natural question, he said, was what types of customers they should focus on.
“We’re identified really strongly with three or four sectors,” he explained, including higher education; municipal and government work, which includes schools, libraries, park buildings, and museums; and historical buildings of all kinds, which can cut across many sectors.
The firm also does some residential work, “but in Western New England, we’ve found it’s very difficult to be successful in residential projects; there aren’t enough multi-million-dollar houses going up — certainly, in this economy, there are zero.”
The firm’s various areas of focus give it a diversity that can withstand economic trends, Jablonski explained.
“The nature of municipal work tends to be ebbing and flowing, and recently there’s been a serious ebb, and we don’t know when it’s going to start flowing again,” he said. “The great thing about higher education is, they’re fueled by tuitions and alumni donations and endowments. They’re not independent of the economy, but they’re often able to do things the other sectors can’t.”
The partners like to talk about ‘adaptive reuse’ when describing projects, and the firm’s design of the Museum of Springfield History at the Quadrangle is a good example. “It was an old Verizon office building,” Jablonski said. “Springfield Museums, because of its location, wanted to acquire it, but how could they use this as a museum? They didn’t want an office building.
“When people talk about sustainability and sound design, we feel that one of the best ways to embody that is to take resources that are already there — the bricks were already there, the wood, the windows, everything was there, but it didn’t have a current use. A lot of it is imagination, when something is transformed into another thing, but making sure it’s up to date with modern building codes.”
That museum project led to Springfield College hiring the firm for its complete renovation of Judd Gymnasia, renamed the Stitzer YMCA Center. For that design, Jablonski DeVries Architects received the Paul E. Tsongas Award from Preservation Massachusetts, as well as the Springfield Preservation Trust Award for Restoration/Stewardship.
The project had a museum component, Jablonski said, and the wife of college President Richard Flynn is a trustee at Springfield Museums. “She was aware of our work at the history museum, and really liked it, and said, ‘why not give these guys a try?’”
When that call came again last summer, under much more trying circumstances, ‘preserve, adapt, renew’ was more than a motto — it’s why students at International, Reed, and Massasoit halls didn’t have to find a new home.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Divine Designs

By BusinessWest Staff January 31, 2012

Architecture Sections

A list of area architecture firms

Click here to download PDF

An Eye for Innovation

By BusinessWest Staff January 31, 2012

Architecture Sections

At Dietz & Co. Architects, Sustainability Is a Way of Life

Kerry Dietz, says the design work her firm does must meet clients’ needs and budgets and also create a sustainable and comfortable environment for the people who will occupy or work in the buildings.

Kerry Dietz was talking about sustainable building design.
And although many people associate the concept with ‘green’ construction, to Dietz, the word ‘sustainable’ encompasses a wide range of considerations.
“Design is critical and happens at many levels, and the word ‘sustainable”’means a lot of different things to our clients,” said the principal of Springfield-based Dietz and Co. Architects Inc.
At Dietz, it includes the comfort and health of those who will live and work in a structure, the aesthetics inside and out, and the costs to maintain a structure during its life cycle, which is especially important to nonprofits that may not have the resources to do maintenance work in the future. “It also includes the materials, the context a building sits in, and the image the client wants to project, because a building can become a brand (more about that later). “It is all critical to us,” she said.
Her company’s tagline is “design that looks good, does good,” and that value has remained key to the way the firm has approached its projects for the past 25 years.
“People know they can count on us to do quality work and do it right,” Dietz told BusinessWest, adding that the entire staff believes their designs should make a difference in the community. “We have never faltered from that initial desire to create architecture that also serves. We are a company that pledges to be a responsible citizen in everything we do.”
Their projects range from affordable housing, which has always been a mainstay of the firm, to education, health care, commercial, institutional, and historic-preservation work. Part of the company’s success is attributed not only to having employees who are experts in their fields, but also to the fact that everyone working on a project is well-versed in its finances.
“We are an open-book company, and my employees know the budgets on our projects, which includes how much money we are making and how many new jobs there will be,” said Dietz, adding that, when there is a profit, everyone shares in it. “People who come here from other firms are surprised at this, but I believe my employees need to know the rules of the game and what the parameters are in terms of hours and months allocated to it.”

Blueprint for Success
Dietz said architectural firms in Western Mass. have to be generalists. “There is not enough work here to be a niche operator unless you are global in scale,” she explained.
However, one of the firm’s challenges is competing with Boston-based companies. “Every time the economy goes south, they come here. And sometimes they bring a level of expertise we don’t have,” she explained. “For example, we haven’t designed 50 schools, and we have never designed a library, so we will never get one. People want to hire someone who has done the job before.”

Michael Erickson, an architectural associate at Dietz & Co. Architects Inc., works on a design for one of their many projects that range from affordable housing to education, health care, commercial, institutional, and historic preservation.

The firm has several specialties, but its bread and butter has always come from work in the affordable-housing industry. “We understand the funding cycles and the regulations. Very often, it means scrambling to put together an application, then having to wait, but we are very familiar with that. Our core value is about serving the community.
“Architectural firms are altruistic to begin with, but for this firm, serving the community is at the core of our values,” she continued. “We tend to attract employees whose desire is to serve, and we do a lot of work for nonprofits. We understand the pressures they are under in terms of funding.”
Another niche for the company is education, especially colleges and universities, said Dietz, adding that the firm is also well-versed in the challenges, fiscal and otherwise, facing both public and private institutions. “Their decision-making and funding sources and flow are totally different from affordable housing.”
When schools receive grants, the work has to be done right away, and most institutions are dependent on state funding and bonding, so any time a financial crisis hits, it affects their budgets immediately, she went on. “But we like doing the work. It ranges from designing new environmental centers to cafés in science buildings, to work in their libraries.”
Banks are also a specialty. The firm designed Easthampton Savings Bank’s new main office and is renovating some of its branches. “We have also done work for United Bank and have been involved in master plans and studies,” Dietz said.

Staying Afloat
In recent years, the firm’s focus has shifted. It is designing less affordable housing and has broadened its base, in part because the economy has made it difficult for nonprofit developers to get funding.
“The heart of the recession was horrid; it was an equal-opportunity destroyer, and we were lucky to survive it. In 2008 and 2009, we had the worst two years we have ever had. Then in 2010 we had the best year we have ever had in our history,” Dietz said.
She attributes the firm’s success to carefully crafted strategic planning, and said its forecasting tools yielded indications that the recession was imminent. “By October of 2008, it was clear we were headed toward a major disaster. And we knew 2009 would be horrible and we were unlikely to get any new work.”
Although many architectural firms laid off employees or closed their doors, Dietz chose to keep all 19 employees on staff. She cut her own salary and reduced employees’ hours, taking advantage of a graduated program within the state’s unemployment system.
“It allowed us to reduce hours without substantially penalizing our employees, which was important, because we still had projects we were working on,” Dietz said. And although it would have cost less to lay employees off, she knew that, by keeping them, the company was positioned well, as there would be clients who would want to take advantage of declining construction prices.
The company has won a number of awards, and individuals within it have also earned accolades. Dietz said one of the firm’s architects received an e-mail from the Department of Public Health stating that her submission for the Caring Health Center, a recent project in Springfield delayed by the June 1 tornado, “was the best she had ever seen in her history.”
“The ability to make these people happy is a huge selling point for us,” Dietz said, adding that it takes a lot of expertise and work to meet complex and detailed requirements.
She added that much of the housing design they do is dependent on low-income tax credits, and they are also knowledgeable about those requirements due to their 25-year history in that arena.

Attention to Detail
An architectural design contains many elements and can become a “brand,” said Dietz, as she talked about the building the firm created for the YWCA of Western Mass. about 10 years ago.
“The organization almost died about 25 years ago,” said Dietz. “They came to us when they were on their last legs and had sites scattered in a variety of office buildings. They told us they wanted a new facility that looked corporate and would let people know their importance as one of the largest human-service agencies in the area.”
So the firm designed a building for the YWCA that “became a reflection of who they are and their vision for the future. Sustainable meant a lot of things to them, including choosing a high-efficiency heating and air-conditioning system as well as exterior materials that wouldn’t require maintenance,” she said.
Dietz said it’s critical to her company’s mission to think about who will use the buildings they design. Office workers need to have enough light and should not be distracted by noise or each other, for example.
“We really try to integrate our philosophy about sustainable design into everything we do; it’s not new to us, and some of the folks who work with me have been thinking this way for 20 years — sustainability is like religion,” she told BusinessWest, explaining that, although the U.S. Green Building Council developed a system of measurements for green building and Dietz and some of her employees are LEED-certified, there are a variety of measures that can be used to promote sustainability.
“We look at the human cost in terms of materials, rather than just the dollar cost,” she said. For example, although many buildings contain vinyl floor tiles, maintaining them requires expensive chemicals, which are not good for the environment; the people who work with them or the employees who will inhale the fumes of the cleaning solutions.

Unchanging Goals
“Since we opened our doors in 1985, we’ve worked to provide an environment that’s both challenging and nurturing,” Dietz said, adding that this begins within the company and extends to the nuances of every project.
“We never lose sight of our ultimate goal: to interpret our clients’ personal vision and create spaces that look great, feel great, and serve the needs of the people who will use these spaces,” she added.
And they do so in a way that creates comfort — and sustainability — now and for generations to come.

Blueprint for Success

By BusinessWest Staff July 19, 2011

Architecture Sections

A chart of area architecture firms

ArchitectureFirms BW0711b

A Study in Perseverance

By BusinessWest Staff July 19, 2011

Architecture Sections

At Studio One, Knocked Down Doesn’t Mean Knocked Out

Greg Zorzi (right, with Chris Novelli) says it was important to get back to work after the tornado, for the sake of not just ongoing projects, but also Studio One employees.

When remembering the events that took place on June 1 and 2, Greg Zorzi paused and looked out the window onto the streetscape below in downtown Springfield, and when he began to talk again, his words were shaken, yet strong and clear.
Like many in Springfield and beyond, the historic tornado changed Zorzi’s world in a single day. The stately Civil War-era brick block known as South Commons that his parents, the original Studio One architects, had renovated and owned was badly damaged one day, then demolished the next. Among several other businesses were the offices of Studio One architects and planners, as well as the Zorzi home.
Sitting in the offices that became the latest headquarters for this architectural firm that has been in existence in Springfield since 1974, he said that, while the business was dealt a great blow both physically and spiritually, the show must go on.
“I strongly believe in the expression that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” he said, smiling. “We had a city water main break about 10 years ago down there, and we were flooded. We thought that was bad!
“But not only was it important for us to get back to work, to get to the projects that we had been working on right after the tornado hit,” he continued, “I’m responsible to all these people who work here. That is what kicked in. We can’t focus on the negative; we have to move forward.”
Talking about what has driven Studio One since the earliest days of the firm, back when his parents, Peter and Melinda Zorzi, were principals, he said that one of the greatest factors in their strength is wrapped in one word, endurance. “You need a tremendous amount of drive to succeed in this business.”
It’s not just all sweat that makes a good architect, he went on. “What we do, and what my father taught me from an early age, was to build goodwill with clients. That means going the extra mile, never mind whether something is an additional service or not. That’s the best advice I ever got. And because of that, folks call us back.”
Very soon after their offices were destroyed, Studio One relocated to 115 State St., and it was here that Zorzi spoke to BusinessWest. In a suite of rooms that doesn’t have the appearance of a makeshift space created on the quick, Zorzi told the story of how he came to be where he is today.
Glossy images of the buildings his firm has designed over the years line the walls, and with that backdrop, he said that the South Commons location may have been part of the firm’s identity — having been its home for over 25 years — but there’s a silver lining somewhere in that story, somehow. It’s clear that the endurance he talks about will give Studio One a firm footing to set forth on its next endeavor (more on that later), to be started this fall.

Historic Preservation
A solid book of work in Studio One’s portfolio comes from multi-family housing and SRO (single-room occupancy) projects, and this goes back to the days when Greg’s father Peter was at the helm. Projects have ranged from luxury condo units to the redevelopment of historic properties for housing in Westfield, with a range that covers most of Southern New England.
The firm was one of the businesses instrumental in the revitalization of the historic Matoon Street area in Springfield. Years later, historically sensitive new construction took place in that district, and that, Zorzi said, is one area where his firm excels.
Reiterating the notion of goodwill that he mentioned earlier, he said this has been a great asset not just for his clients, but for his business as well. With many projects over the years funded by HUD money, sometimes going the extra mile meant a repeat customer — many times over.

South Commons, pre-tornado, was Studio One’s home for more than 25 years.

“One of the distinctions of our firm is that we are very willing to work up front with our clients, especially with those HUD projects,” he said. “They might need assistance with funding, or any amount of assistance in getting their project off the ground. Oftentimes we’re not paid a nickel until the construction documents are 100% done. Then we receive DPG [demonstration program grant] monies from HUD — and then we’re paid. We’re way out there though from the start.”
Repeat customers, from HAP Inc. to Domus in Westfield to the Sisters of Saint Joseph, have been a significant component to how Zorzi’s firm has kept busy and how, unlike other firms its size, it has never had to downsize in staff. “Again, from working with my father, this is how I learned how to build a business,” he said.
With his father in a strong leadership role from the start, Zorzi laughed when talking about succession issues when he became president. While Peter is still active in the firm — “he knows so many people in the industry; he’s an incredible asset, and we still get work from his numerous contacts” — it was natural for the child who started running errands at the age of 10 to eventually take over someday.
After graduating from Boston Architectural College in the 1980s, Zorzi went to work for a large firm in the Hub. It was good experience, he said, but he knew he wanted to return to a smaller-sized shop.
“I was still working there,” he remembered, “when I asked my dad one day at a wedding, ‘are you going to ask me to join the firm or not?’ His response was, ‘I thought you were happy in Boston!’ and then, ‘of course!’”

Student Loans
There are many events that can shape the history of a business. While the events that took place after the tornado are a significant obstacle, Zorzi firmly said that this is a hurdle, but not a dead end.
His comments were carefully thought out, and it’s clear there’s a lot of hurt still there. But he repeated again that one word as an overarching answer to all of what transpired: “endurance.”
“When the city demolished South Commons, we were all greatly saddened,” he said. “I thought the city’s approach was heavy handed and capricious, and not thought out. Those buildings were secured. When we found that block in 1980, it was in worse shape than what happened by the tornado — the section of wall that was damaged and knocked down was a non-load-bearing wall.
“But the worst part,” he continued, “is that we’re licensed architects, and we weren’t even consulted on the fate of those buildings. We were told by City Hall that FEMA was calling the shots, but we later found out that was wrong, that the building commission was. No question in my mind, those buildings on the National Register of Historic Places could have been saved. It’s hurtful. I think the city has made some grave errors in judgment, and we’re calling them out on that.”
Then he stood up from the desk and called in his project manager, Chris Novelli. “There might be a good ending to this story after all,” Zorzi said.
It will start this fall, as Novelli teaches a graduate-level seminar in the Architecture + Design Department at UMass Amherst, to be held in Court Square. “It’s going to be a South End reconstruction studio,” Novelli said. “It’s still in the planning stages at this point for scope and focus. And this is not going to be a purely tornado-based program, but rather taking a broader-based look at the South End — the history of it, what problems exist, and how to create development opportunities.
“I think the biggest goal is that the students learn something,” he continued. “But I personally hope that some of these ideas that the students will eventually come up with will help the city leaders and planners see potential for what they can do, rather than trying to get in any developer who is just willing to do anything there.”
Zorzi added that he would like to see business and civic leaders engaged in the session as well, to act as ‘clients’ of a sort for the students’ projects.
“This is about healing. Even if it’s just a vision for what can be, it’s a healing process,” Zorzi said. He was referring specifically to the UMass program, but it was clear that this architectural firm’s president was also thinking about Studio One, and the city he has called home most of his life.

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