Sarah’s 2025 Spring Internship and Apprentice Learning Program
April 2025 — As an architectural intern at West Work, one of the most fulfilling experiences of my internship was sitting across from a group of curious, bright-eyed middle schoolers at the Dewitt Center in Roxbury. Through my involvement with Apprentice Learning, I had the opportunity to serve as a Career Mentor and introduce students to the world of architecture. Not just the buildings we design, but the thought, collaboration, and creativity that shape them.

Read more …
Blog
Relearning Tradition Through Passive House
March 2025 — Written by Aatman Modi. Growing up in an architect’s home meant that architecture wasn’t something I chose—it was always there. Our house was also our design office, where I would come home from school to find designers pouring over drawings, building models, and sketching intricate plans. I was that overly curious kid who asked far too many questions, much to the amusement (and occasional exhaustion) of the designers around me. I was fascinated with how a simple sketch could turn …

Read more …
Blog
Housing, Community, and Making Change
February 2025 — Written by Katherine Faulkner. Connecting with a state-wide reading initiative, I recently joined a book group to discuss Mel King’s Chain of Change: Struggles for Black Community Development. Melvin ‘Mel’ King (1928-2023) is a well-known Bostonian with a powerful legacy as an active organizer, educator, and politician in the city for more than 50 years. My vague familiarity with Mr. King has been around his work with Boston Public Schools, where he was central to exposing the baked-in unfairness and inequality …

Read more …
Blog
Interview With Deb Shephard
December 2024 — Note from Editor. I have the pleasure of being part of a NESEA-funded business support group with Deb Sheppard.  Our cohort, nicknamed Seven Strong, comprises women-owned businesses with missions around sustainability and healthy/inclusive communities. Whenever we meet, Deb inspires me with Riverstone’s commitment to practical and measurable change.  Reading the morning paper, all of us are reminded of the consequences of our collective damage.  We can see the wages paid to our extractive economy, and we know the impact of continued consumption.  It makes …

Read more …
Blog
Yasmin’s Summer 2024 Internship & AIAS Grassroots Conference
August 2024 — Yasmin Morais Torquato is a rising junior studying Architecture at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. Originally from Brazil, Yasmin chose architecture to have a meaningful impact in her surroundings through creative design. In her free time, she enjoys exploring new places, curating playlists, and engaging in various arts like writing, photography, and drawing. During her summer internship at West Work, Yasmin attended the AIAS Grassroots conference in Washington D.C., where she shared her early experiences in the architecture profession.

Read more …
Blog
Pathway to Green Certification
August 2024 — Written by Aatman Modi, Graphics by Yasmin Morais Torquato. The United Nations’ Environment Programme, the UN’s commission to support the implementation of global environmental obligations, published a 2023 report called Building Materials and Climate: Constructing A New Future, which indicated that the building and construction sector is responsible for an astonishing 37% of global emissions. Since 1975, when the term “global warming” first appeared in the news, engineering, and architecture have been linked to the warming of the planet via …

Read more …
News
Neighborworks’ 25th Mulligan Tournament
July 2024 — West Work had an amazing time participating in Neighborworks’ 25th Mulligan Tournament, a golf fundraising event dedicated to veterans. Thanks to all the generous sponsors, volunteers and golfers, Neighborworks raised over $100,000 on that day! Thank you Neighborworks and Curtis Construction for hosting this event. West Work is grateful to be part of your team.

Read more …
News
Scaling Up: Can Prefab Help Passive Building Go Mainstream?
May 2024 — Katie Faulkner was on the Passive House Podcast with co-host Ilka Gronert Cassidy from Passive House Accelerator, along with Beth Campbell of Unity Homes and Edie Dillman of B.Public Prefab.   Can prefab help passive building scale up and go mainstream? Listen to the podcast episode here.

Read more …
News
High Performance Retrofit Panel System
February 2024 — Written by Teddy Slosberg, Image by Christian Borger. Deep Energy Retrofits (DER) are becoming increasingly common as building owners strive to maintain their assets and lower energy costs. However, the retrofit niche is limited from an economic standpoint. The most significant barrier to most DER’s is cost escalation. It can be expensive to retrofit buildings, and in some cases, the cost of DER exceeds the price tag of new construction. Most structures are unique and present different challenges, so a …

Read more …
Blog
Building Tightness Workshop with Siga
February 2024 — West Work, together with office neighbor Stull + Lee, had a wonderful workshop with SIGA on building air tightness and moisture management. Here is a summary of our key takeaways. When it comes to improving a building’s energy and moisture performance, the first thing to check is air infiltration. Even minor holes and punctures contribute significantly more to energy loss than inefficient windows or mechanical systems. Addressing these infiltrations, identified through precise blower door tests, is a more cost-effective initial …

Read more …
News
BE+ Green Building of the Year Finalist: 31 Tufts
October 2023 — We are delighted to announce that our affordable housing project located at 31 Tufts Street was selected as one of the top three finalists for the Green Building of the Year Award by BE+! This distinguished award aims to recognize exceptional green building projects recently completed in Massachusetts.

Read more …
Blog
Interview: Juann Khoory, AIA, LEED A+P
October 2023 — Written by Teddy Slosberg. While researching West Work’s hotel conversion projects for transitional housing for the homeless, I found myself digging deep into the myriad of potential solutions for homelessness and how the hotel-to-housing model fits within that. For more information on this topic, I interviewed Juann Khoory, the chair of the Shelter and Homelessness Roundtable for the Boston Society of Architects. Juann works with architects to help organize talks around homelessness to educate the industry on the work being …

Read more …
Blog
Deep Energy Retrofits: A New Horizon
September 2023 — Written by Teddy Slosberg with input from Bruce Hampton. Climate crisis management demands quick and multifaceted responses to ensure that what is built today does not contribute to the issues of the next century, and the buildings we already have can be repaired so that they cease their extraordinary energy consumption. In recent years, state and federal governments have added mechanisms to promote responsible and sustainable building practices. New buildings in Massachusetts must adhere to strict energy performance requirements to …

Read more …