Village Congregational Church

Restoration and renovation work on the Village Congregational Church in Whitinsville was completed in time for Christmas 2008. The project included barrier free upgrades, including a new elevator, classroom and office renovations and a second floor infill between wings of the building. The infill included three educational classrooms and a balcony overlooking the main fellowship hall of the church. Juster Pope Frazier opened up and restored the original ceiling of the hall creating a new and dynamic focal point to the renovations.

Peggy and David Starr Broadcast Center

The Peggy and David Starr Broadcast Center was completed in January 2009. This 1,200 square foot interior renovation features a new control room, broadcast studio and newsroom for WFCR public radio. Juster Pope Frazier provided architectural design and interior design services collaborating with Cobalt Design Studio.

Northampton Senior Center

We are pleased, and proud, to announce that the Northampton Senior Center has received Silver level, LEED certification from the US Green Building Council. This is the first publicly funded building in western Massachusetts to receive LEED certification for new construction. It is also one of only five municipal buildings in the Commonwealth to achieve this level of certification. Kudos, thanks and praise, to Jacquie Scott our resident LEED AP who served as project manager throughout and led the certification process. Much of the process was done online and in retrospect it really wasn't as bad as people describe. Alot of projects claim to follow LEED guidelines but very few clients are willing to foot the bill to get actual certification. Thanks to city of Northampton for its continuing commitment to talk the talk and walk the walk when it comes to sustainability.

End of Year

December finds us finishing up several projects including UMASS Transit, the Village Church and WFCR Springfield Bureau. Work continues on Nichols College "Copper Beech 2" suite dormitory and UMASS New Africa House renovations. 

It's also been a time for awards. Juster Pope Frazier received its third consecutive design award from Western Massachusetts chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Scott Tulay, of our firm also received an award for hand rendering in the oldest arhitectural drawing competion in the nation. 

We anticipate moving forward with design work on New Africa House at UMASS and the Saint John's Fieldhouse in Shrewsbury. 

PVTA Transit Building at UMASS



Progress continues on the UMASS Transit Center in Amherst a new 16,000 square foot building located along Governor's Drive and Holdsworth Way. The Regional Transit Information Center will be housed within the building, a state of the art traffic control center for routes 9 and 91 in western Massachusetts. Additional facilities include bus storage, administration and training offices. The project is scheduled to be complete in early December 2008.  

Nichols College

We've just opened a new sixty four bed suite residence hall at Nichols College working closely with Nichols College and Lauring Construction of Worcester. The building is designed to LEED Silver standards integrating geothermal heating and cooling. A second residence hall, also designed by Juster Pope Frazier,  is being built parallel with this one, creating a new classic central quad for Nichols which will quickly become one of the identifying landscapes of the entire campus. The project is scheduled to be complete late Summer 2009. This is our twelfth residence hall project including new construction and renovation. 

Fuller Fitness Center at Anna Maria College

Juster Pope Frazier has just finished work on the new Fuller Fitness Center at Anna Maria College scheduled to open in late August 2008. The project includes cardio, circuit training and weight training areas. Particular attention was paid to the use of natural light to illuminate the entire 3500 sf. building, minimizing air conditioning and lighting loads. Particular thanks to Anna Maria College and Lauring Construction of Worcester, capable co-conspirators.

Chicopee Health Center

The Chicopee Health Center, completed recently by Juster Pope Frazier, represents a good example of adaptive re-use of existing buildings in order to save on escalating construction costs. In this case, an existing empty masonry building, abandoned by prior owners, was purchased and renovated for approximately $175 per square foot. Equivalent development from the ground up would have resulted in additional costs of at least $50 per square foot.

Inspirations


Trekking about Northern Arizona, we've spent the last few days in the landscape of Sedona. Sedona seems to have developed most fully since 1962 on, and if ever there is a need for smart, comprehensive planning, Sedona is it.  There does not seem to be a center to Sedona, just sprawl along the two main highways of town.  Thankfully, there is no denying the astonishing beauty of the landscape overlooking the town but it seems only to point out the folly of what is going on below it. 

That said, I am enormously grateful to have been able to trek amongst these monstrous beauties, carrying Bach Magnificat on the way in and Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 1 on the way out. It turns out that listening to music on the hike is a great way to focus on the astonishing visual scale and diversity of the desert.  All in all a very humbling and inspiring place to be.

We're off to Fort Worth, checking out the Kimball, since we're in the neighborhood.

Words are Cheap

Along the lines of doing good....

We are in the midst of raising funds to support the Fine Arts Center University Gallery at the University of Massachusetts. Juster Pope Frazier will be contributing $2,500 towards the cause, words are cheap. The project involves the printing, mounting and framing of four oversized photographs of the Ct. River Valley by New York artist Joel Sternfeld focusing on the Holyoke Range. Sponsorship and support of the Fine Arts Center is one of several charitable contributions we've put together over the last year or two.

We should be submitting final documentation for LEEDS silver certification on the Northampton Senior Center in the next week, a long, but not quite so painful process thanks to the diligence of Jacquie Scott.

Along the lines of living inspired...

Take a look at Scott Tulay's recent charcoal drawings at his eponymous blog: scotttulay.blogspot.com

As for creating beauty, check in next month or so and we'll have some progress photos and drawings of recent Juster Pope Frazier projects.

Change is Good

The launch of our new website ends our latest phase of understanding and identifying the nature and "mission statement" of our firm. I've never been terribly comfortable integrating words with architecture so our mission statement like our practice is succinct and clean: 

Live inspired, do good, create beauty.

I wanted language that spoke to the beginnings of Juster Pope Frazier examining qualities of the three partners, Norton Juster (live inspired), Earl Pope (create beauty) and Jack Frazier (do good), to define the culture, aspirations and tenets of our office. Clean and succinct, easily understood. 

Change is good. The evolution of Juster Pope Frazier has left us a bit stronger and more able to select projects that we want to work on as opposed to doing projects that we need to work on. It has also allowed us flexibility to focus our attention a bit further on charitable giving , fundraising and pro bono work. The best lessons learned over twenty five years of experience remain the ones that are the easiest to articulate. Never forget you're spending someone else's money; redundancy is a good thing; mutual respect is a strength; quantity of work does not equate to quality of work. Live inspired. Do good. Create beauty. 


June 2008

June 2008 will find two projects getting started with construction, a second 66 bed, suite dormitory for Nichols College in Dudley and renovations to the Village Congregational Church in Whitinsville. Both of these are located in Worcester County, a bit of a trek from Northampton, but they are good projects for good people working with good contractors.  Nichols is being built by Lauring Construction, Village Church by Consigli Construction.

Work under development includes the Tully Fire Station in Orange and the Gitsis Building in Shelburne Falls, a new two story mixed use project on Bridge Street.  

May 27, 2008

After thirty seven years in Shelburne Falls, Juster Pope Frazier has moved its studio to 82 North Street in Northampton. Our move has been pretty quiet, maybe unduly so, several folks have commented that we need to let people know where we are. Truth of the matter is, we're doing quite well and there may be a time when I regret saying this, but I like the fact that we are letting our work speak for itself, basically ignoring all of the marketing wisdom. For the moment, we've got great clients, great projects and great enthusiasm for what we're doing. I like the size of our office, the people I work with and the work we are doing. There is a certain freedom and flexibility to staying the size we are, we don't have to take everything that walks down our path.
In other news, Nelson Geis, one of our project managers, and his wife, Alissa, had a baby boy this weekend. We expect Nelson back in a week or two.