Journal
A practitioner's perspective on architecture and the built world — the design decisions, market realities, and project knowledge that don't usually get written down. Published weekly.
Contents:
Architecture, culture, and the ideas worth arguing about.
What building on St. John, St. Thomas, and St. Croix actually involves — from land to permit to construction.
Renovation in Romania — what the building, the process, and the design actually involve.
How we work with clients across time zones, jurisdictions, and project types.
What building from the ground up actually involves — structure, permits, cost, decisions.
What existing buildings require before, during, and after — structure, regulation, and cost.
Latest articles:
Slope, Setbacks, and FAR: The Site Constraints That Decide Your Project Before You Do
Zoning is not a formality you hand off to a consultant after you've bought the land. It is the first design decision made on your project — and it was made without you, years or decades before you arrived. By the time you're standing on a lot imagining what you'll build, the zoning code has already determined how much of it you can cover, how high you can go, how far you must sit from every boundary, and — if the site has any slope to it — how much of your budget disappears into the ground before a single wall goes up.
Most first-time developers and investors don't discover this until they're mid-process. This article is the earlier conversation.
