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THE WORK WE DO - This is our watch. We need to be bold and decisive
- to hang out over the abyss if necessary - to take risks in order to
achieve our goals. Sometimes this means we have to decline to accept projects
even though it means that we may have less work than we wish to. We're
lucky that this has rarely been a problem and we're grateful for it. On
the other hand, we must be practical, and not overly fussy because, as
our friend Terry Brennan says, "You gotta fly your kite when the wind's
blowing." Someone said that the human tendency prefers familiar horrors to unknown delights. It's easy to keep doing what we know how to do. It's easy to stick with doing what we're familiar with. But we also ask ourselves, "Is it wise to always choose safety and caution?" So we evaluate each project carefully, in the same way that our potential clients evaluate us - to figure out if the fit is good. If it's a development project, our concerns are about community benefits and the creation of affordable housing. The point is to determine whether the project's benefits outweigh the detriments to the community as a whole. Another consideration in the mix of work we accept is the size of the project. In many ways, small addition or renovation projects require as much time and effort as large ones, but generate far less revenue. There's a limit to how much work we can manage. If we fill our schedule with lots of small jobs we're in trouble. But many of our past clients want us to do alterations, additions and renovations to the houses we've built for them. We are committed to these clients and these buildings - we always want to be able to do whatever is necessary. And each year the number increases. So we have a policy that, in general, we will not do smaller projects - under, say, $300,000 - except for our former clients. We work only on Martha's Vineyard. We are committed to that. It's just too hard logistically and too distracting to work in other locales. It's also too unfamiliar - we do not have sufficient knowledge of the history and the landscape. We don't know the people. After 30 years of working on the Vineyard we have begun to understand this small region. So we stay close to home, except for educational and consulting work beyond our shores. Another commitment, except in rare cases, is that we
do the interiors work in all our projects: furniture, fabrics, rugs, etc.
This brings a sense of integration to the process. In years past we were
often disappointed when owners brought interior decorators in who didn't,
in our view, understand the buildings. We have developed our own interior
design department which furnishes houses in keeping with our combined
design intention. Because our interior designers work with our architectural
designers, from the beginning, and work very closely with our clients,
everyone is on the same page.
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We try to choose work that fits our mission and suits us well. We have
found that if a project doesn't align with our values, or the chemistry
with the client isn't right, everyone ends up disappointed. We try to
create a constant mix of new construction, renovation, and development
projects - all can be valuable and satisfying.
