Blog
See our blog for new projects, announcements, and all things TMS Architects.
Sustainable Architecture: Can a Building Make Its Occupants Happy
Our earliest ancestors understood the concept of sustainable architecture without realizing there was a name for it. They set up home in savannas, woodlands and caverns that provided the proper amount of natural light, protection from weather extremes and plenty of plants and vegetation to survive and barter. Unfortunately, centuries passed before we began to consider these benefits of biophilic architecture.
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Utilize the Energy Star Light Bulb Guide When Seeking New Lighting
An important facet of sustainable architecture is to reduce energy consumption and your carbon footprint. Although it may seem insignificant, something as simple as replacing ordinary incandescent bulbs in your home with Energy Star-rated products can add up to substantial savings on both your energy bills and your home’s carbon footprint.
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Adding an Addition to Your Historic Home
Historic preservation is an aspect of Americana that can be seen in New England and communities both small and large. And, this is one of the driving factors that keep some homeowners in their historic home from one generation to the next, leading some to add an addition. But with tight regulations that ensure the integrity of original structures, this is not a project homeowners should take on without the advice and design skills of an experienced architect.
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Style and Function: Planning Outdoor Lighting
The exterior of your home sends a message to everyone who sees it. You want it to appear warm and inviting to your family and friends, while giving an impression of security to prowlers and miscreants. Fortunately for homeowners, selection of the design and landscaping of a home can broadcast the message you want to send, whether it’s in an aesthetic or protective sense.
When used properly, outdoor lighting can not only make your home more attractive, it can also transform your home into a safer, better functioning environment for you and your family.
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Elevate a Simple Home with Warm Woods
The natural charm and warmth of wood has long been recognized by designers and homeowners alike as one of the preeminent material choices for historic homes. Its multicolored tones and subdued textures have often been imitated, but never truly reproduced by other materials, both naturally or man-made.
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LED Lighting: What the Craze is All About
Light emitting diodes, or LEDs, are semiconductors that emit light when voltage is applied. Although they’ve been around in limited form since the 1960s, it wasn’t until the last decade that they gained in popularity as an energy efficient lighting source. With a high light output and a wide range of colors available, LEDs are now used for both general and targeted lighting.
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Designing a Bathroom That Draws the Wandering Eye
Although bathrooms provide an excellent return on investment, many people overlook the benefits of designing a space to draw the wandering eye. Whether you’re undergoing a major renovation, uplifting a historic home or building a new home for the family, working with an architect can help inspire great home design ideas for your bathroom while providing a high return.
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Light up a Historic Home with Contemporary Lighting
Historic homes generally don’t have a lot of natural light, but this is all part of the charm that draws us to them in the first place. With the vast choices available today, it’s possible to bring modern lighting into a historic home without compromising the architecture’s character.
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Bringing Transitional Lighting into a Grand Foyer
Since your foyer is the first room to make an impression on family, house guests and visitors, it’s important to make a bold statement with the right design. Whether your style is modern or you’re re-creating a look from days gone by, the lighting plan you choose for your foyer is a fundamental step towards achieving your home’s best design.
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Sustainable Architecture 101: The Utility of Salvaged Wood
An important facet of sustainable architecture includes using building materials that are not harmful to the environment, as well as reusing materials whenever possible. Salvaged wood can be upcycled and used in many applications that meet both of those criteria. Considering the beauty, uniqueness and historical quality of reclaimed wood, you should not overlook its usefulness.
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Selecting the Right Lighting can Actually Boost Productivity
Although it may not be an obvious priority for your business, commercial site or home office, lighting design is a critical element in any work space. It can encourage sales in a retail environment and boost productivity in the office. Since lighting a work space consumes so much energy, upgrading to energy-efficient light sources is a great investment that can encourage production.
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Lighting We Like: Hammerton
As the leading American custom lighting designer, Hammerton knows a thing or two about creating gorgeous light fixtures. Combining old-world artisan techniques with modern design and manufacturing, we can count on them to produce the best lighting solutions for the most refined New England designs.
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Illuminate Your Home with Efficient Lighting Solutions
Lighting is often overlooked as a factor that can help homeowner’s save a significant amount of money over time. From complete renovation projects and sustainable architecture to simply replacing bulbs, there are benefits to illuminating your home with efficient lighting solutions.
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The Miracle of Changing Rooms
TMS Architect’s guest historian, J. Dennis Robinson, provides us with an interesting post on moving things around and how a change in space or time can really alter your perspective! As he says, “the more things change, the more they stay the same…”
“I used to row an Alden Ocean Shell. I put the fiberglass boat on the top of my old Toyota Tercell and hauled it from one access point on the Piscataqua River to the next. Once, long ago, I put the boat in the back yard to store it for the winter — and it sits there still.
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Upgrading a Historic Home with Energy-Efficient Lighting
In an era where energy-efficiency is at the forefront of everyone’s minds, when it comes to lighting a home effectively, modernizing the lighting in an historic preservation can be a challenge for both the homeowner and the architect. In order to protect the integrity of historic preservation in New England, finding a balance between the natural daylight and historic light fixtures with modern upgrades is essential.
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New Life for an Old Barn!
TMS Architects recently had the opportunity to work again with Rob Karosis to photograph an unusual architectural project that Shannon Alther, TMS principal, worked on recently. The homeowners of this beautiful home and barn had lived in the area for years and were thinking seriously about downsizing…apparently all they really needed in a new locale was access to the internet and an airport. However, the more they thought about leaving the area, the pull of family and grandchildren was hard to ignore so they came up with an ingenious solution in lieu of leaving the family home.
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Lighting Vaulted and Cathedral Ceilings in a Modern Home
Vaulted and cathedral ceilings present unique challenges in terms of lighting a modern or historic home, especially when task lighting is required. With the wrong lighting your beautiful open spaces can become a dark and glum eye-sore, rather than bright, fun areas to host gatherings among family, friends and colleagues. Read on for some lighting ideas, whether you’re ceiling is vaulted or cathedral.
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Even the ‘Money Pit’ House can be Restored with the Right Architect
In 1986, Tom Hanks and Shelley Long had audiences in stitches in The Money Pit, a film about a dream house that becomes a renovation nightmare. That story, of course, is just fiction – or is it?
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Working with an Architect: Choosing a Floor Plan
Just because you’ve decided to build a two-story Cape Cod home doesn’t mean it’s all settled when imagery of your future home surfaces in daydreams. If you’re working with an architect, he’s going to need a bit more tangible information before construction can begin!
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Light Up a Transitional Room with Schoolhouse Lights
When designing a transitional room, finding the right balance of new and old furnishing while maintaining an uncluttered space can be a difficult accomplishment. This can be especially true when you are trying to add task or ambient lighting.
New updates to timeless schoolhouse lights are an excellent way to add a vintage appeal to any room, especially when incorporating them with historic architecture. Light-diffusing shades and the smooth, clean lines of the pendulum-style lights are a classic way to add light to areas that are in need. Today’s schoolhouse lights offer bands of color, various geometric shapes, to add interest, and fancier fittings that would work in a number of transitional rooms.
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