PHILOSOPHY
Deborah and Alan founded Epstein Joslin Architects as an architecture, design, and planning firm, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts — nationally known for creating beloved cultural destinations and distinctive dwellings with people at the center.
Their work is informed by a deep conviction that social and personal needs should be at the center of the act of building, and that architecture should evidence a gracious neighborliness with its natural and human surroundings.
In particular, it is shaped from six guiding principles:
1. CREATE PLACES OF MEANING
Welcome Center at The Breakers, Newport, RI
Places that foster an awareness of and pride in the uniqueness of a setting and its inhabitants. We seek to show sensitivity to the specific qualities of the cultural, natural, built, and/or historic context in which our work is situated.
2. STRENGTHEN THE BONDS OF COMMUNITY
Koka Booth Amphitheater, Cary, NC*
Places that are welcoming, inclusive, and inspire people to aspire to the highest personal and civic ideals. We seek to make community spaces that bring people together to vividly and fully engage in the rituals, performances, and tasks that define their identities.
3. OFFER A RICH VARIETY OF LIVING CONDITIONS
Seaside Estate, Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA
Places that support a healthy range of interrelationships of people with one another and with their surroundings. We seek to build environments that provide a healthy balance of social connectivity and personal privacy.
4. CELEBRATE THE BEAUTY OF MATERIALS AND LIGHT
The Floating Peak House, Newton, MA
Places that demonstrate in craft the richness and variety so abundant in our natural world. We seek to build in a manner that celebrates a visual joy and the prudent and artful manner in which physical environs can be afforded, assembled, and cared for.
5. SEEK MEANINGFUL INNOVATION
Groton Hill Music Center, Groton, MA
Places that address changing cultural norms, environmental challenges, and technological advances. We seek design rooted in humanist values and informed by reason and scientific inquiry.
6. MANAGE RESOURCES WITH RESPECT AND RESPONSIBILITY
Dedham Country Day School, Dedham, MA
Places that are built within principles of sustainability and inspire by means of an “elegant frugality.” We seek to allocate the investments of a project in a manner that parallels the priorities of the client and community.
To reach these goals, we offered onsite single or multi-day design workshops that immersed us in the spirit and ethos of a place and engaged us with the individual client and/or members of the client community in an interactive dialogue around potential design ideas.