July 2026
Hello friends!
The heat is unbearable in Amherst, and things are getting busy in the best way possible here in Graphite Land. We are currently knee-deep in coordination, pushing hard on a wave of projects ready to break ground this fall. While the season brings an abundance of exciting new work, it also brings a poignant farewell to our beloved Anita in our studio.
If you’ve worked with us over the last few years, you know Anita. She joined Graphite Studio fresh out of her Master’s program at UMass Amherst and has been our longest-standing employee, anchoring our team for three incredible years. While we are heartbroken to see her leave the daily grind at the studio, we are beyond thrilled for her next chapter: she is heading off to pursue a Ph.D. program! Anita has left an indelible mark on our high-performance designs and our studio culture. Please join us in wishing her the absolute best as she takes the academic world by storm. You'll rock it, Anita!
Warmly,
Andrew and the Graphite Team
Graphite Insite Haiku time!
Breathe
Wildfires, Orange Skies
Inside - our ERV brings
Clean fresh temper’d air
PROJECT UPDATE: WEST DOVER
West Dover is one of the earlier projects JJ worked on when she first joined Graphite Studio. We worked on this project with Owl’s Head Builders to make sure this beautiful ski chalet is preserved in its glory. The retrofit included mold mitigation, along with ventilation and a overall facelift throughout the house.
GRAPHITE WISDOM: TEAM FLO!!
It has been a month since Team Flo gathered and we are still buzzing with excitement from gathering at Matt’s stomping yard. As we reflect on our Bottom Line’s retreat, we are deep in thought about how Graphite Studio can harness our next steps.
GRAPHITE WISDOM: CASADENZA
We wanted the look and feel of real masonry without the massive structural footprint (or the headache of thermal bridging) that comes with stacking heavy stone. We recently met with Casadenza for a lunch-and-learn and got to nerd out over their flexible stone veneers. Instead of heavy slabs, they source 100% real quarried stone and back it with a specialized resin and a layer of fabric. The result is an ultra-thin, flexible sheet of real stone that can be applied to both interior and exterior surfaces. Because of how it's backed, the joints can look completely seamless, and it can even wrap around corners and tight curves. We get the authentic warmth of a stone hearth while keeping our building envelope simple, tight, and easy to detail. We hope to get a chance ot use this in our future projects!
Photo from https://casadenza.com/resources/