PACHANO&VOLLERT


We are a full service architecture and interior design office working in  the Berkshires, Western Massachusetts, the Hudson Valley, New York, City and beyond. We aim to elevate the quality of people’s lives through architecture by creating spaces that inspire discovery. Our approach is simultaneously exploratory, technical, and responsive to requirements of the project and sites on which we build. Our process intuitively reveals possibilities latent within every brief over a range of project types and scales including urbanism, buildings, houses, renovations, additions, interior design, landscape and furniture. Regardless of scale, we are committed to be curiously engaged and thorough from beginning to end.

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SELECTED PROJECTS

PORT APPLE
Tyringham, Massachusetts

Our brief for this house included evaluating an existing structure, master planning the circulation and relocation of an existing building on the sprawling site and integrating an existing swimming pool within the whole scheme. We thought the best course was to demolish the existing structure so that we could accomplish the client’s desires in the best way possible: easy one level living, integration with the view of the Cobble, connection to the pool and high efficiency from the building systems. The result is an 1800sf super-insulated and air-tight home which includes two-bedrooms, two-baths, office, living, dining and cooking-all the essentials of contemporary living wrapped into a tight building envelope.

Most important for our clients was maintaining a view of the Cobble from the existing pool which sits almost nine feet above the finished floor of the house. For this reason we chose a flat roof which has provided more of a view from the pool than the previous house. So, Tyringham now has a flat roof!

Although it is difficult to see in images, the front facade is at a slight angle to north/south walls, so the building is not a perfect box. It faces west/southwest, so by angling the facade slightly south we are able to capture just a little more of the heat from the winter sun. Exterior shades protect the south and west facades in the summer from the baking sun.

We love when our clients appreciate the finite resources of our world, the way that human habitation has decimated the natural world for other living creatures and have an appreciation for the aging process of materials. To this, our clients have repurposed stones uncovered as part of excavation and are returning the front yard to a native pollinator space. Also, the siding they chose will age over time, changing color as the sun moves around it while maintaining its material integrity. This is one of our favorite projects because of the way we were able to weave so much program in a tight space and the decisions our clients made with the landscape.
FOREST LAKE HOUSE
Lee, Massachusetts

The Berkshires Mountains of Western Massachusetts are surrounded by forests and spotted with lakes and ponds. We were offered the challenge of designing a house for a for a couple with an extended family, with the need for spaces to be used privately and in communion with family and friends. Our strategy for working on this small site was to upset the existing foliage as little as possible and use it to inform the shape of the building. We worked to preserve an existing maple tree in the center of the rear yard and used it as a “pivot” point for the design.

We separated the program into two “zones,” residential and public. Were the two sides meet, the building pivots a minimum in order to maximize the rear yard’s Southern exposure. Passive House detailing was employed to create a super insulated, air tight building resulting in interiors that maintain a constant temperature and humidity level while minimizing energy use. 

Interior spaces hold views of the lake and forest while providing comfort and functionality.  Windows provide frames of discovery and create pauses through space, pulling you in and away, creating tension between intimacy and distance, inside and outside, silence and sound. The light shimmers off the lake into the interiors which are activated by trees which give shape to the sound of the wind.



GRAMERCY PARK APARTMENT
New York, New York

Gramercy Park is emblematic of classic New York, a square oasis surrounded by the energy of the city and lined with buildings representative of New York’s rich architectural heritage. Our project is located in a 1928 Emery Roth designed building and whose subdued Art Deco elegance is embodied in the design of the interiors.

Our intervention addressed aberations in the plan with regard to circulation and privacy as well as well as a material makeover.

The resulting discreet lines and materials connect and intrigue the senses. We exploited the qualities of wood and stone to contrast with the grit and roughness of the city outside. Each detail is considered and crafted to create a cohesive ensemble of living funcitons, especially exising details in the ceilings which were built in 1928 and updated to 21st Century aesthetics.  
STATE ADDI U 
Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Land-use policy in Great Barrington is among the most flexible in the Southern Berkshires. Asked to provide space for an extended family, we were able to use space on the site of the existing home to create a separate structure to provide the basics for weekly visits.

Amenities are provided that would retain the primary residence as the main gathering place for all social functions. 

Sustainably built by incorporating Passive House detailing, the new 800sf structure incorporates american woods for siding and floors. The main entrance eschews the traditional entry, which would otherwise occupy significant usable space within the small footprint,  in favor of a lockable lift and slide which opens to a kitchenette with access to a laundry/mudroom. 

Occupying a site adjacent to a state highway, the north side of the building is free of penetrations and is insulated against sound while windows at the ends offer ample light and fresh air. The result is a space that integrates to the main building, despite being detached, while providing privacy and all functional requirements for families with small children during either short or extended stays.

BELOW THE STONES
West Stockbridge, Massachusetts

Our brief called for multiple spaces for reflection, rejuvenation and spiritual awakening within a small footprint. The site was bordered by a large stone outcropping to the West and a flowing landscape of grass, trees and stones like pillows among the ferns.

We apporached the brief from the outside in, connecting the interiors to the sloping ground with elevated views and sloping vistas. The shape of the roof was intended to follow the tilt in the terrain. The entry is a combined screened room and mudroom. Several rooms were to serve a dual purpose as well: well-ness room/sleeping porch; studio/guest room; office/meditation. The apporach from the long drive leading into the site revealed the building clearly and frontally in order to make a visual connection between its shape and the curvature of the land.
HOUSE ON A BLUFF
Becket, Massachusetts

Among the most challenging questions we debate in practice is how to approach virgin sites. Of course the impulse is to disturb as little as possible, but the reality is that construciton and human habitation after its completions changes ecosystems forever.

For House on a Bluff, a brief to accomodate a large family, our goal was to make the residents conscious of their surroundings in the hopes that their intervention will not be forgotten. Wherever possible, physical connections are made with the ground and vegetation that surrounds the buildling. The promenade through the different functional spaces either creates a moving image as one walks or is initiated with an image at the destination. Desipite the air tighness and super insulation, we worked on producing opportunites to make connections with the site. 

Despite being a large building and because of the plan’s openess to the landscape, one is in continual conversation with the land and the pond beyond.


HOUSE OF BOOKS
Brooklyn, New York

Make it fun, colorful, modern and flexible. Our client gave us these words and an Arne Jacobson chair to work with in the restoration of a Brooklyn Heights warehouse that had been converted to apartments. 

Gifted with a large sliding door leading to an outdoor patio, we mixed the power of white with dashes of color to bring a liveliness to a space that was to funcition as a den, library, office and living room. Color was also introduced with furniture fabric and, pillows and floor coverings to complement the marble top surface of the counter and desk. Our first use of a gloss finish, required of the brief, added dashes of movement.
HOUSE IN THE GREENWAY
Egremont, Massachusetts

Part of a group of houses that share a common open space, this house was to serve as a retirement home for two New York City professionals seeking the Berkshires lifestyle.

With an abundance of views, we were able orient the house to maximize exposure to the sun with compromizing the scenic beauty of the site. Surrounded by a pine forest, the house sits on an open field that is mowed twice a year. By mid-summer, the house is an oasis in a meadow.

Designed within a compact footprint, the 2000sf house provides for three bedrooms and carport with exterior enclosed storage. The approach to the front door is excavated out of a small hill that serves as a type of plinth so that reaching the front door one is 24in submerged into the ground. The South side of the house is at grade and faces the meadow. The simple roof profile mimicks the slope of the ground while the shallow pitch allows for ample ceiling heights in the guest bedrooms.


HIGHLINE GALLERY
New York, New York

The Highline is among the most successful adaptive re-use projects in New York and is aclaimed around the world. The new rail deck is known for its sprawling gardens and views of the city above and below. The spaces underneath, however, are ripe for experiments in what we may call “urban accupuncture” in which existing underutilized city space is claimed as public space. We were tasked wth expanding a prominent art gallery by providing a local satelite for special exibitions and installations.

Our intervention winds the exteriors around the existing structures of the bridge above,  the interior spaces created as traces of the bridge. structure 

Inside, two distict gallery spaces, distinguished with a change of elevation, frame art and bring it into focus, allowing for contemplation from a distance. A diagonal path extends under a bridge leading to two entrances: and entrance ramp serving accessiblity requiements and the main entry; and a service entrace hidden by pushing it inside the main facade. 

the entrance ramp allows for a procession into the main space, connecting the  pavilion to the street. Stepping down up from the main entry gallery in the center of the pavillion creates a transition between the two galleries. Together they expand the view and on their own, one can stand alone with the art.