2010 TOP 12 – #3 COMPLETED PROJECTS

2010 – Reused wine barrels, barn boards, thinking small

2010 dealt a brutal hand to our industry, architects and contractors continued to compete over scraps amid a lousy credit market and very high construction-related unemployment. Many business owners protected cash reserves in lieu of building projects; homeowners who did build focused on small improvements.

These smaller projects kept us humming. We helped clients imagine new ways of storing and preparing food in new kitchens, relax on summer porches, and create a better home for the tractor.

Architects have a reputation of being inaccessible spendthrifts, unafraid to blow large sums of other people’s money on frivolous details. At Locus, we’re aware of that perception, and eschew it. We’ve done a handful of exquisite high-cost residences, and we’re proud of that work, yet the majority of our clients are middle-class people who want the very same things as more affluent clients: intelligent design worthy of the investment. All clients want beauty AND value. We expect to achieve that whether we’re designing a palace, church, the neighborhood restaurant, a mudroom, or locating the outhouse window.