Trillium this weekend!

Trillium Brewing Company opened it's doors yesterday! It was so exciting to see the space complete and filled with people. My favorite features are the beautiful wood bar top and the reclaimed windows that give you a peak into the production floor and the up-lit row of stacked wine barrels that are used in the beer making process. Look for the glow of the lights off the lovely ipe wood entry wall as you walk down congress street. Inside you will find some very friendly beer enthusiasts and growlers of very special beer!
Stop by this weekend and see the lovely space for yourself...and of course buy some beer!
Have a great weekend.

IN CONSTRUCTION: house to home

It's been three short months since this project began it's transformation from idea to reality. There has been demo and framing and lots of progress. I just love construction photos. They feel so raw and in some ways irreparable. It's hard to imagine that in just as much time it will look completely different...and trust me, it will! Can you see it? 

Have a great weekend!

If you are looking to take a road trip this weekend, I have a recommendation!
Head west to North Adams, MA where you will find modern art by a great little bed and breakfast where you can rest after an inspired day. I took this trip last year and wrote about it here. But currently at MassMoCA there is a very special work by Xu Bing that should not be missed. That's a photo of it above, but trust me when I say it does not do it justice.
So get in your car and go!

IN THE CLASSROOM: Student work

IN CONSTRUCTION: Trillium Signage and Lighting

Exterior signage is up and the lights are on. Trillium Brewing is coming to life. No firm opening date yet, but as soon as I know I'll pass the information on to you. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Drawing by hand

Every semester there is always one well intentioned student that asks, "Do I have to draw by hand?".  I first gasp, then take a sip of water to calm myself and wonder where it is they are getting the memo that not knowing how to draw by hand is an option?
In my calmest possible voice, I explain that hand drawing is the most visceral way an architect accesses and communicates ideas. Drawing is like breathing to us. It's immediate and is a way for us to communicate with our brain, directly. Sounds like science fiction. You'd think that would get them.
Maybe (very likely) I'm becoming a dinausaur, extinct in my thinking that a line on paper is like poetry, or music. Hmm, maybe that's were I've really gone wrong. If only it were more like a thousand images speeding by very quickly. Alas, it is not. It's just slow and meditative.
That may be so, but my drafting table stays, and so does my belief that to be an architect you still have to learn how to draw...by hand, slowly and painfully like the rest of us did. Yep, I'll keep fighting extinction one class at a time.

IN CONSTRUCTION: Trillium Brewing Co.

No doubt you have, by now, heard about Trillium Brewing Company. It's a project I've been working on for over a year. Yesterday I stopped by to see progress on the tasting room/retail space. The guys at G.H. McKissock Construction are doing an amazing job with all the little details of this small space . I love the reclaimed windows the owner JC got from a building next door in Fort Point Chanel. They really are turning out to be the show piece of the space. Here's a peak!
What do you think? Will you stop in for some craft beer when it opens in the Fall?

NEW WORK: house to home

I'm excited to share a new project I have been working on for a few months. It's for a lovely couple who just bought a pretty little house in JP. They are modernists at heart and the house, with it's lovely bones and traditional detail provides the perfect frame for a contemporary remodel.
So, the design process began and for me it's always with hand sketches.
These are from the early stages of the project. I look forward to sharing more as construction gets underway soon!

SITE VISIT: East Boston

A few weeks ago while on my way to visit friends and their newborn in East Boston, I couldn't help notice the... gaps between buildings. Yup, gaps. This city is small, but I love how each neighborhood has it's own distinct character and quirks. East Boston's quirk, it turns out, is the curious gaps that appear everywhere between building. Or maybe that's just what I noticed, but I was fascinated. Some are not even wide enough for a person to fit through. I imagine being a kid growing up here and loving the little spaces that only I could fit through.
What quirky things have you noticed around your neighborhood?

IN CONSTRUCTION: Trillium Brewing Company

(before)

Trillium Brewing Company is a project dear to my heart! My good friends JC and Esther are building a brewery in the Fort Point Channel and I'm the lucky girl who got to design it.
It started back in...well, when did it start? Let's just say the design process started a while back. After months of work and waiting, we are in the midst of construction! It's exciting to see what started on paper take shape in the real world.

(during)

It's happening! The sidewalk is poured, the glass is in and the ipe wood wall is halfway up. I am loving the way it looks. It's happening fast, so check back for more progress photos soon. There is signage and lighting and a lovely bench/planter on the way!

A concrete knee wall is born.

There are few things more exciting than the process of construction. Yes, the design process is, for me, the source of most of my joy. But, truth be told, when a project leaps from the page to the physical world, it's like a  dream become reality. I was never one for dwelling on the, "It only matters when it's built.". But I do love me a good concrete pour! And today I got just that!
Trillium Brewing Company, a project I have been working on for over a year is being built. Yes, brick and mortar, or in today's case, concrete and rebar, BUILT!
It is just a little knee wall, drawn to accurate detail on paper. And today it was made real, and out of concrete! Exhilarating!!

NOTE: Concrete is the substance that most people refer to as cement.
TRICK OF THE TRADE: Cement is a component in concrete, along with sand and water...if you want to be in-the-know about construction, always refer to it as concrete...and never, ever as cement!
Horay concrete!!

Upcoming Apperences

MAKE.GOOD s t u d i o is thrilled to be appart of the following upcoming events!! This Saturday, Susana will be apart of a panel of women entrepreneurs at the Women at Wentworth Event. 

Also Wentworth Architecture Club; WAC is hosing a dinner with Susana next week on Wednesday!!

A weekend at MassMoCA

A few weeks ago I drove west to Mass MoCA, the mill turned modern art museum in the Berkshires. It is a pilgrimage I had taken before, eight years ago. After that amazing trip I promised myself I would do it again, yearly, on the same weekend. Eight years later I hadn't yet returned.
So when I arrived on a cloudy Saturday afternoon at the Porches Inn, the worker's housing turned contemporary bed and breakfast that sits in the shadow of the enormous mill building of the museum,  I remembered why I had wanted to return.

There is something erie and beautiful about this place. It's past is still palpable in it's present. The mountains surrounding the small town, the historic mill buildings with their juxtaposed modern content, the slow pace of life, all feel beautiful yet out of place somehow.

As I settled in, however, the strangeness dissipated and the quiet was a welcome change from the city. The next day, in the sunshine, I explored the museum. For three and a half hours I poured over the inspiring art and architecture.

I eventually found my way to the Sol LeWitt exhibit. I didn't know much about LeWitt's work, but as I explored the endless galleries of his wall drawings I fell in love. The simple beauty of hand drawn lines on a wall spoke to my own training and sensibility as an architect. Room after room the complex constructions pulled me in and I was hooked.

LeWitt's philosophy about art is fascinating. A series of instructions describe the way each piece is created by a draftsman. Each time the "art" is made anew and therefore slightly different than it's previous incarnation. The draftsman has a hand in the process of creating and the sacredness of the work of art lies in it's accessibility an impermanence.

I plan to return to this strangely magical place next year...as I had always said I would. After this trip, I felt inspired and renewed. I wanted to create, to make, to even attempt my own LeWitt wall drawing...Maybe I will do just that and become a part of this amazing process of creating.