HEIRLOOMS TO LIVE IN

In the battle between an universal global architecture and a particularized local architecture, the former seems to be winning as styles meld together across the globe. Since Kenneth Frampton’s landmark essay on critical regionalism over twenty-five years ago, the century-long globalization pattern been pitted against the small, but growing impulse toward more diverse architecture conceived out of local conditions.
One architecture firm, Hutker Architects, Inc., has amassed an impressive body of work based on local traditions, since the publication of Frampton essay. The firm focuses largely on residential projects in a coastal setting of New England. This setting is more varied than a casual observer might think from wind-blown bluffs to secluded woodland settings. An architecture aimed at environmental needs of a specific region is by definition the local dialect or vernacular.
Yet the over 200 homes that Hutker Architects, Inc., has hand-crafted avoid a single style. What has been constant across these projects is the life equity principe that underlies the client-architect dialogue. The 25 projects featured in the book illustrate a diverse and new regional vernacular architecture. They provide for the home owner’s long term needs, both physical and psychological, use materials best suited to the spaces neede, and accommodate ever-changing family arrangements.
And they fit their clients so well, that they are rarely sold outside the families that built them. Indeed, wheter small or large, these homes are treated as heirlooms by their owners, to be perserved and handed down to the next generation.