A principal-led house.

I · Hello

A note.

I built houses before I drew them. Twenty-five years of it — framing crews in the rain, change orders at the truck, the cabinet that almost made it through the door. You learn how a house actually goes together. You also learn what a homeowner sounds like at month nine.

I started this studio because most of the rooms I loved had been drawn by people who had never swung a hammer, and most of the houses I built had been finished by people who had never picked a fabric. I wanted those two jobs to be one person.

The studio works across four states, and it works that way because of the people in it — associates and drafters who have been with me for years, and trades we have built with long enough that I trust their judgment in a room I have not yet stood in. None of this scales without them. What does not scale, and is not meant to, is the direction. Every room carries my name. The drawings are reviewed at my desk. The decisions are made in my voice. The color matches the light it has to live in. The chair fits the door it has to come through. The budget is built on what things actually cost, this year, on the ground.

Four to six houses a year. If we work together, the work carries my name.

— Thu