A4 Architecture Blog
Newport Architectural Spotlight: The Future of Planning
The new year is always a time when the real estate industry takes a step back to evaluate the progress it has made in the year past, anticipate the prospects for the year ahead, and open the opportunity for Newport future planning. It is no surprise that the main...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: A Second Gilded Age for Beechwood?
As most Newporters are well aware, the great mansions along Bellevue Avenue were primarily built during the Gilded Age. This was the period from about 1887 until the First World War, when some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in America were drawn to the...
A4 Project Spotlight: The Newport Arboretum
Newport is not only known for its concentration of great and important architecture. It is also a cemetery for landscape design and a treasure trove of rare and exotic trees. This is not surprising as the city has always been a port city connected to distant lands by...
Newport Architect Spotlight: Peabody & Stearns
Newport is fortunate to have had many of the most notable American architects of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries design buildings within the community. Peter Harrison, Richard Upjohn, Richard Morris Hunt, H.H. Richardson, Horace Trumbauer, and Stanford...
Newport Historical Spotlight: New Urbanism and Newport
For the last twenty years, there has been a growing planning movement called “New Urbanism.” This ideology advocates, according to NewUrbanism.org, the following principles: 1) Walkability, 2) Connectivity; 3) Diversity of uses; 4) Mixed (price) housing; 7) Quality...
Newport Historical Spotlight: Newport’s Irish Masons
We are now going through the first prolonged economic downturn marked by mass migration from parts of the world even more economically challenged. Since the city’s founding in 1639, Newport has seen numerous cycles of boom and bust and waves of migration that matched...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: Belcourt Castle
Newport is filled with wonderful buildings in widely differing styles, created at different times and for different purposes. Some, like the Newport Casino, are associated with summer fun. Others, like Belcourt Castle, have become equally famous for the Halloween...
Newport Spotlight: Newport – The Museum of Architecture
Newport might rightfully be considered the "Metropolitan Museum of American Architecture," in that it is the repository of some of the most important works by some of this country's most important architects. Furthermore, it has the distinction of having a good many...
A4 Guide: Architectural Design as Art
Architecture has often in the past been considered to be the mother of all the arts in that it traditionally combined and included painting, sculpture, the decorative arts, and even metalworking and glassmaking. In the creation of the design, architects employed the...
New and Old in Harmony
People often feel torn between the desire to preserve the architectural heritage of the past and to protect the environment of the future. Fortunately, these two goals are not really in opposition and, in fact, can be very complementary with one another. The US Green...
Fort Adams Newport, RI
Unlike other forms of artistic expression, architecture is best understood and enjoyed through use. Sometimes a work of architecture is used in very different ways over time. Fort Adams is one such structure. The enormous 6 acres enclosed “parade,” once designed to...
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A4 Guide: Virtual Spaces
In the midst of the COVID pandemic everything seems to be virtual. Virtual school, virtual work, and virtual meetings now dominate many of our lives. This has been made possible largely by the development of the high-speed internet and servers powerful enough to...
A4 Guide: Innovative Designs Responding to COVID
The first real impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States came barely four months ago with a huge spike of cases in New York City, resulting in an economic shut down and closing of in person classes at most schools and colleges. It almost seems like years...
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: The House of the Future
Few things in our culture have changed as little or as slowly as the construction of houses. As was the case 50 years ago, a set of paper plans is made into a real building by a set of contractors with tape measures using wood 2x4 studs. The workmen of 1920 could step...
A4 Guide: The Post-COVID Home
During the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, we have all gotten to know our homes better than we ever thought was possible. They have become our schools, our offices, our restaurants, and our movie theaters. In this time of change it is inevitable that we should think...
A4 Spotlight: Earth Day
Sometimes, there is a swan hidden inside an ugly duckling. This Barrington house, built in the 1970s, had a low ranch roof and googly-eyed bay windows protruding asymmetrically. The new owners loved the magnificent, sweeping views the site enjoyed of Narragansett Bay...
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...
A4 Guide: Archi-Tech – When to Hire an Architect
When planning a construction project, people often wonder if they need to hire an architect. The answer depends upon many different factors. Is it a residential or commercial project? Do you want to add to the building, substantially rearrange it or simply redecorate...
A4 Guide: Be Ready for Future Floods
This view of Bowen's Wharf from a few years ago shows the dramatic reality of floodwaters during a coastal storm. (Photo provided by Ross Sinclair Cann) It often takes a Nor’easter like last week to remind people in coastal communities that the beautiful vistas we...
A4 Guide: Progress and Continuity
Now that the election season is over for this year, politicians and citizens are left to sort through the results and figure out how to move forward. While some want change, others want continuity and preservation of existing conditions. These two forces have always...
A4 Guide: Choosing an Architect or Contractor
The last five years have been a quiet time for building construction and design in the United States. According to the US Census Bureau, the volume of construction in the last 5 years is nearly 30% less than the previous five years and is still lower today than it was...
A4 Guide: A Brief History of Insulation
As the leaves turn brilliant colors and the evening temperatures begin to fall, it is time to think about the value and many advantages of good insulation. Insulation is meant to keep heat out in the summer and in during the winter and is measured in “R-value” (with...