Solving an Artist's Conundrum by Upstate House

“Once I feel like I’ve absorbed the priorities of the client, then I try and capture it in a loose form, like watercolor pencil,” says Grigori Fateyev. “That’s the freest, most direct way of documenting my thoughts. The sketches exist as research and become a manifesto for the project.” Fateyev, owner and principal of Hillsdale-based Art Forms Architecture, has a tendency to talk deeply and philosophically about his profession. “Architecture is a funny field: What we’re designing doesn’t exist. We design what buildings contain, not the buildings themselves—we design the volume.”

The Cantilevered Live/Work Space featured here is a long-term passion project of Fateyev’s and not one that was specifically commissioned. He has designed several homes/studios for artists, and he’s wrestled with the demands of meshing creative and domestic space in one building. “There’s a great amount of activity in an artist’s studio and the need to respond to very practical demands,” says Fateyev. “When it becomes a living space, there’s an entirely different set of demands.”

Read the full article in Upstate House Magazine.