Amenta Emma Architects, Hartford, Stamford, recession

HARTFORD After recessions, architects are like crocuses.

When developers, governments or nonprofits hire architects, it's what they call a leading economic indicator those contracts will result in workers in hard hats with paychecks many months or a year down the road.

Since any recession, no matter what its cause, leads to a pull back in new construction, months of sustained growth in architecture firms' billings is a concrete sign of business optimism and investment.

Bob Emma, one of the two founders of Amenta Emma Architects, said clients with vision start talking about projects two or three years ahead of when they think they can afford to build, and those conversations were happening as early as 2011 and 2012.

But Connecticut's past that now, he said. "All clients are suddenly asking: 'Can you be in the ground by June?' They recognize the market's back."

Emma said, "Everything looks very rosy for, let's say, two years."

About 30 percent of the firm's work is new buildings though roughly half of its revenue comes from these larger jobs and the rest is either interior design or additions. They are looking to hire two architectural designers with two to 10 years' experience now. Often, they find those candidates at other second-tier cities around the country, but sometimes they recruit a professional from Boston who is tired of big-city costs.

Amenta Emma has 36 employees, with eight of them in a Stamford satellite office established four years ago.

That office came about almost by accident. The firm had been doing a lobby redesign in Bridgeport, and a real estate broker suggested to the partners they should open an office in Stamford. He said the larger architecture firms in that region didn't treat these kinds of jobs as if they were important, Emma said. The Stamford office has grown from two to eight employees in four years.

More here:
Amenta Emma Says Construction Growing Healthily

A Portland architecture firm is opening a Silicon Valley office, hoping to take advantage of the footholds it's already found there.

SERA Architects has been doing Silicon Valley work for clients including Stanford and Google for five years, spokesman Kip Richardson said. Some have said they would have more work for the firm if they had a full-time presence in the Bay Area.

"Now, there's a lot of work in Portland," Richardson said. "Were looking at the long-term and trying to build a more resilient company. Having more geographic diversity is part of that."

The 110 person firm also sees an opportunity to "export" the experience of designing in Portland to Silicon Valley, where Richardson said there's a move to urbanize and address issues around housing and transportation that have cropped up as the tech companies have grown.

Principal Clark Brockman will lead the office, which is expected to grow to three to six employees this year.

-- Elliot Njus

enjus@oregonian.com 503-294-5034 @enjus

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Portland's SERA Architects to open Silicon Valley outpost

Dad would have loved this story.

Its about a 120-year-old brick house in Northside, a one-room wide, modest but nice place where on its third floor and out in its garage a young man began inventing things that would later save more than 20 million lives my fathers included.

Its not the sort of house youd expect to connect with a cardiovascular surgeon named Thomas Fogarty, a man so important that in November he was awarded the Presidential National Medal of Technology and Innovation at the White House. Fogarty is an inventor and entrepreneur who has developed many medical devices used in heart surgeries.

And, oh yeah, heput a pig valve in my dads heart at Stanford University Medical Center in the mid-1970s that extended his life by 25 years.

I shared this story with the couple who have lived for 12 years in the Fogarty House Michael Griffith and Nicola Mason and in turn, they shared a few Fogarty stories and their passion for the hallowed place they and their daughter call home.

A lot of effort went into having floors refinished, a kitchen created, wallpaper removed and paint and polyurethane applied, but the end result is the goal they set.

Its got quirks and its got history, Mason said. Its also got craftsmanship you cant find in new construction.

The couple lived in Baton Rouge, La., when Griffith was offered jobs in Cincinnati and North Carolina. He interviewed here in February 2002.

Griffith, an English professor at the University of Cincinnati, and Mason, managing editor of The Cincinnati Review, zeroed in on Northside during their initial house hunt. The 2-story Fogarty House, which was built by the doctors family in 1895 around the corner from the Andrew Jergens mansion, was an obvious contender.

A lot of houses we looked at didnt have the woodwork exposed. It had all been painted over, Griffith said. I was looking for original woodwork and door frames.

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Home Tour: Surgeon and inventor 'grew up here'

The restoration project in the Great Hall at Allerton Castle

First published in Harrogate & Ripon news

A MAJOR project has been launched to clean and restore the 70-foot high ceiling of a North Yorkshire stately home.

The restoration scheme in the Great Hall at Allerton Castle, between York and Knaresborough, has involved Harrogate Scaffolding Ltd installing its highest ever interior scaffold.

A team of stonemasons has been restoring the window tracery and stone ashlar blocks, after which work can begin on cleaning and restoring the wood panelling of the hammer beam ceiling and bosses, as well as the decorative stained glass windows.

Once the work at the top of the ceiling is completed, restoration will begin on the Angel Gallery, with all the work having to be completed before Easter so the castle doors can open again for visitors and wedding guests alike.

Go here to see the original:
Restoration project starts at Allerton Castle

Updated: 01/16/2015 10:47 PM Created: 01/16/2015 10:46 PM WDIO.com

Super One Foods celebrated the grand re-opening of its Kenwood store with a ribbon cutting Friday.

Patrick Miner, the store director for Super One's parent company, said the Kenwood store underwent remodeling to its deli, produce, meat and bakery sections.

Miner said the changed will create more room for shoppers and feature new merchandise.

"It's great to actually see the smiles on the store staff's faces as well as even customers as they walk in here to watch people with wide-eyed looks going, 'i haven't been in here for a while, wow this is amazing,'" Miner said.

According to Miner, the company is planning upgrades to more of their stores within the nest year. There are about a dozen Super One stores in the Northland.

Excerpt from:
Kenwood's Super One Features More Space, New Merchandise After Remodeling

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