A4 Architecture Blog
A4 Guide: The Positive Impact of Sustainable Architecture
We live in a time of change and challenge. Things around us seem overwhelming and beyond our control. Between an unseen virus, long and simmering societal tensions, and global climate change, we seem buffeted at all sides. But there are things each of us can do to...
A4 Guide: Evolution of the American Home
Our homes have always been our castles, but never more so than during the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. Our homes have become our schools, our offices, our restaurants, and our movie theaters. In this time of change it is inevitable that we should think about all the...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: Modern Newport Architecture
Newport is fortunate to be a treasury of great architecture from a wide variety of periods. By a combination of happy accident and hard work, unlike many places where great works of architecture have been lost to successive periods of growth, Newport has maintained...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: The Gilded Age
Newport is fortunate to be a treasury of great architecture from a wide variety of periods. By a combination of happy accident and hard work, unlike many places where great works of architecture have been lost to successive periods of growth, Newport has maintained...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: Federalist and Early Victorian Era
Newport is fortunate to be a treasury of great architecture from a wide variety of periods. By a combination of happy accident and hard work, unlike many places where great works of architecture have been lost to successive periods of growth, Newport has maintained...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: Colonial Settlement
Newport is fortunate to be a treasury of great architecture from a wide variety of periods. By a combination of happy accident and hard work, unlike many places where great works of architecture have been lost to successive periods of growth, Newport has maintained...
A4 Guide: Adaptive Reuse and Redevelopment
Sometimes old buildings outlive the reason for their original construction and yet they are beloved structures that are an important part of the local history and architectural fabric. What is to be done with these buildings? Newport, because of its long history and...
Newport Historical Spotlight: Twelve Beautiful Streets
In Thornton Wilder’s famous final novel, Theophilus North, the author described Newport as “nine cities” — distinct communities that overlapped one another to form the entire “City by the Sea.” With apologies to Wilder, I’d like to increase that number to an even...
Newport Historical Spotlight: Newport’s History Walkthrough
There are few places in America where a person can see more National Historic Landmarks and other seminal structures than in Newport, Rhode Island. In a 60–90-minute walk, one can view important buildings from five different centuries while beginning to understand the...
Newport Spotlight: Tennis in Newport, RI
A4 Architecture was pleased to be a sponsor for the 2019 US Pro Singles Court Tennis tournament played from June 1st to June 8th at the Newport Casino Court in Newport, RI. Court tennis in Newport, RI has a history - The Newport Casino is also home to the...
Newport Historical Spotlight: The History of Newport’s Point
The 2019 Newport Architectural Symposium took place this past Saturday, May 25. The topic selected for the Symposium was “The Architecture and History of Newport’s Point Neighborhood.” There are really no areas of Newport that have a full spectrum of buildings from...
A4 Spotlight: The Block Island Times – “New Wine in Old Bottles”
In the Spring 2019 issue of House & Garden, a special publication by The Block Island Times, Ross Sinclair Cann wrote an article titled “New Wine in Old Bottles.” This article discusses effective ways to renovate old structures to current standards while...
A4 Guide: Storm Window Installation and Insulation Save Money
As the nighttime temperatures begin to fall, it is useful to remember that there are few investments in your home that are less visible, but more valuable, than the installation of insulation. There have been some tremendous advances in the technology of insulation in...
Newport Spotlight: Architectural Symposium: Horace Trumbauer
There are many great architects who worked in Newport over its long and illustrious history. Richard Morris Hunt, Stanford White, and Peter Harrison are all names that have become familiar to those that read the “Archi-Text” column regularly. A somewhat less familiar...
A4 Guide: LEED Certification and Sustainable Design
As energy prices continue to rise and concerns about “global warming” and “carbon footprints” become more widespread, the building industry is beginning to change to address these new concerns. We are currently at the leading edge of the “green building” phenomenon —...
Maya Lin and the Challenge of Creating Public Art
Vietnam Memorial (Washington DC, Maya Lin 1981) In 1981, when the judges of the Vietnam Memorial competition opened the envelope on the back of the winning entry board, they found the name “Maya Lin” and the address of a Yale dormitory where the young woman lived as...
A4 Spotlight: Preserve Rhode Island Awards
On October 21st, the second annual “Rhody” Awards were presented jointly by Preserve Rhode Island, The RI Historical Preservation, and the Heritage Commission, and Newport County was featured prominently — both in what projects were awarded and where the awards were...
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A4 Architecture Tour: From The Gilded Age Into The Modern Era Along Newport’s Waterfront
The Newport Architecture Tour Map Newport, since its founding in 1639, has been a community wedded to its waterfront and became known as the “City by The Sea”. During its early days, the community grew up on The Point and Historic Hill, with the city depending upon...
A4 Architecture Tour: Late Gilded Age, Ochre Point & Lower Bellevue
The Newport Architecture Tour Map Following the arrival of Caroline Astor (Mrs. William Backhouse When Astor Jr.) to Newport in 1880 things started to change rapidly. What had been a quiet and genteel summer retreat for old money people from New York, Boston,...
A4 Architecture Tour: Early Gilded Age Newport
The Newport Architecture Tour Map During Newport's occupation by the British forces from 1776 to 1779, the population of the town decreased by fifty percent, and it would never return to its status as the fifth most populated city in North America. It was, however,...
A4 Architecture Tour: The Point & Washington Square
The Newport Architecture Tour Map Newport Rhode Island was founded in 1639 when a freshwater spring was discovered near a protected deep-water harbor just off the Atlantic Ocean. Unlike other colonies, such as nearby Massachusetts, the colony of "Rhode Island and...
A4 Spotlight: Newport Casino, The American Temple to Tennis
This coming week the eyes of the tennis world will be on Newport as many of the players from Wimbledon will be competing in the Infosys Hall of Fame Open. This is the only ATP men’s tournament played on grass in North America and extends the tradition of tennis, which...
A4 Spotlight: The Past, Present and Future of Reinforced Concrete
Pantheon In Rome, Italy 128 AD Steel-reinforced concrete is the means by which most tall buildings are constructed today. It pairs the compressive strength of concrete with the tensile strength of steel to make an incredibly structurally efficient hybrid composite and...
A4 Spotlight: Designing for Hope Funds 2024
Architects are not decorators they are professionals that solve challenging spatial problems. This means that sometime A4 Architecture goes above and beyond our normal task of designing buildings. Since 2007, our firm has had the honor and pleasure of designing all...
A4 Spotlight: Newport Spring Park
The settlement of the colony of Newport began in 1639 with the establishment of the Newport Charter. The location of the settlement was defined by the location of the freshwater spring that made the settlement and habitation of this location possible. It is this same...
A4 Architecture Tour: The Shingle Style
Seeing pictures of architecture can be useful, but there is no substitution for seeing the real buildings firsthand. Fortunately, in Newport Rhode Island there are so many notable works of architecture that you can experience many important examples of the craft’s...
The History and Importance of the LeRoy King House
The LeRoy King House in Newport Rhode Island stands as an enlightening representation of the evolution of the Shingle Style into a more classic, historically influenced design typology during the rapid construction of grand houses in Newport during the Gilded Age. The...
A4 Architecture’s Twentieth Anniversary
In Honor of Our 20 Year Anniversary I graduated from Architectural School in 1990 and received my professional license to practice architecture by passing all eight exams by 1993, which was the earliest I was allowed to sit for the exams following a three-year...
A4 Spotlight: The History of Energy Evolution
Transformative Power Source: Man-Made Fire The story of human civilization is intertwined with the story of our ability to harness energy. From the prehistoric harnessing of fire first that banished the darkness to the current quest to replicate the power of the sun,...