This holiday season I offer you the gift of eye-candy from some of my favorite regional fine-art photographers. They each capture the often stark and stunning beauty of the buildings and places we know as home in New England. For a real treat, I encourage you to visit their websites and browse their online galleries.

photo by Alison Shaw, courtesy of her websiteAlison Shaw's name is familiar to many Vineyarders. She's been an inspiration since her early days in black and white.

photo by Ben Staples, courtesy of his websiteNorth Shore photographs by Ben Staples are riveting.

photo by Jeffery Becton, courtesy of his websiteDigital montages by Jeffery Becton can take your breath away.

"White Window" by Katherine Drew Dilworth, courtesy of her websiteKatherine Drew Dilworth's work often combines the tactile with the visual to wonderful effect. (Plus, she's a fabulous friend.)

"Round Church Door" by Tom Way, courtesy of his website.For years, I held on to a note card I bought which had this photo by Tom Way on the front. I simply couldn't part with the image. Who would want to?

"Fish Shack, Maine" by John G. Kelley, courtesy of his websiteI find John G. Kelley's photography and words particularly compelling.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

At last weekend’s symposium: “The Greenest Building is Already Built” I learned about a number of online resources which describe the unheralded benefits of restoring old, wood windows, weather-stripping them, and outfitting them with appropriate storm units instead of replacing them.

I’ve written here before about improving the performance of old, wood windows, which can be a “greener” and more aesthetic alternative to replacement windows.  But don’t just take my word for it.  The National Trust for Historic Preservation has a great tip sheet on the topic.  The U.S. Department of the Interior offers an informative Preservation Brief about it.  Apparently, this is a favorite topic of Old-House Journal's too.  They have articles here and here about it.

I was hoping to link to a graphic Old-House Journal published in their September/October 2007 issue, which illustrates four different window “tune-up” strategies and their associated annual energy savings in BTU’s, dollar savings per window (assuming gas heat at a 2007 rate), and the payback period.  I couldn’t find the graphic online, but suffice it to say that that the repaired, weather-stripped, old, wood window outfitted with a quality, storm window gives the Low-e glass, double-pane thermal, replacement window a run for its money.

Frank Shirley, of Frank Shirley Architects was awarded a 2010 BSA Research Grant in Architecture to study this issue and will release his findings sometime next month.  I’ll be sure to link to his study here when it’s available.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

logo by The New York TimesHave you been following the Living Rooms series which The New York Times launched in June? It explores my favorite topic -- home: how it reflects who we were, are, and aspire to become. 

Most recently, author Elizabeth Hawes wrote in “Our Buildings, Ourselves” about her lifestyle change when she moved from an elegant Upper West Side c. 1908 apartment house to an expansive Tribeca loft, built a couple of decades earlier. In her tale of a well-heeled life, home is an opportunity to sample an alternative identity. The same could be said for another post “How the West Won Me” by author, New Yorker Winifred Gallagher about her vacation home in Dubois, Wyoming. 

In “Home for Life” author Allison Arieff writes about the impact of the recession on our perceptions of home as a place to live among a community, rather than as a real-estate investment. Her choice of home, like those of Hawes and Gallagher, offers insight into her priorities, and, ultimately, who she is too.

Sometimes the best way to get to know folks is to visit their homes. Short of that opportunity, their descriptions of their homes may be the next best thing (especially if they're authors).

Read my review of Winifred Gallagher’s House Thinking here and catch my thoughts on my home here.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Samurai House & Garden image from Just Enough by Azby Brown. (Those samurai really knew how to live.)With his 2005 book The Very Small Home: Japanese Ideas for Living Well in Limited Space Azby Brown made a welcome appearance on my radar. He’s an architect and design theorist originally from New Orleans who’s been living in Japan since the mid ‘80’s. An interest in traditional Japanese wooden architecture initially attracted him to Japan, and the adaptation and reinterpretation of that tradition in contemporary Japanese architecture and design continue to intrigue him today. He’s the director of the Future Design Institute in Tokyo at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology.

His latest book Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green from Traditional Japan explores how sustainable practices of the Edo period can inform how we shape a sustainable future. For an informative introduction to Brown and Just Enough, check out this interview on Seeds and Fruit. You can also see and hear Brown highlight the book and its mission on this TEDxTokyo video or catch his Pecha-Kucha presentation in Tokyo. Additional information is available on the Just Enough website.

In a recent post by Brown in the Atlantic he shares a more personal example of a Japanese approach to sustainability, which could also inspire sustainable approaches elsewhere. It’s the story of his neighbor’s urban farm in “the middle of Yokohama, a progressive city of 3.6 million”. As with the lessons in Just Enough, Brown appreciates that often successful, Japanese solutions recognize how everything is inter-related. 

It is in many ways common sense, that issues of energy, water, materials, food and population are intertwined, yet sometimes we need to be reminded how a healthy, interdependent, renewable system has worked and can work in order to imagine how it might work in a different time and place.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Did you see The New York Times article last week about the garage retreat near Seattle?  It's a fun and sophisticated 250-square-foot getaway.

A small space of one's own, beyond the hustle and bustle of everyday life, can remind us of life's simple pleasures. Such little buildings generally tread lightly on both the environment and our pocketbooks, while recharging our spirits.

The design of small retreats, backyard and beyond would be a great topic for a book, don't you think?  I thought so and was working on such a book a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, it fell victim to the publishing industry's downsizing which began in mid-2008. I still believe there's a book there, waiting to be discovered.

You can sample a Katie Hutchison Studio small retreat design by visiting the Manchester Garage/Garden Room page in the KHS architectural portfolio.

I imagine my fascination with the topic started with my childhood backyard retreat and was reinforced by my mother's current, petite summerhouse in her Connecticut village. I wrote about her garden and her little retreat in a House Garden Primer.

Get a peek at her garden summerhouse in this short Flip video.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast