Andy grew up in a corner of land formed by Lake Ontario and the Niagara River in a village filled with a combination of historic homes dating to the War of 1812 and developer-built houses built in the 20th century to support industry in the surrounding area. It was a long drive from where he was growing up to just about anywhere and the view from the car showed him a world filled with towns, farms, forests, fields, creeks, a massive lake a huge sky that to him became a tapestry woven together by history. It wasn’t until high school that he realized that our history was bound up in our buildings and that a career in architecture would allow him to both learn that history and express his creativity.

From there he went the School of Architecture & Planning at the University at Buffalo - a familiar city that became something completely new to a young person whose worldview was expanding. The program here was intense and students were immediately thrown into design studio courses - something that Andy loved and dove into headfirst. Students were taught to design by making, starting with small cardboard models built at their desks and quickly expanding to full scale creations in the huge on campus shop facility. In those years Andy worked with wood, metal, concrete and fabric and gained a strong appreciation for how these materials can be formed and made to work together. A critical experience was studying in Aarhus Denmark at the Arkitektskolen Aarhus where he met people from many countries, traveled across Europe and saw countless buildings.

After graduation Andy relocated to Boston and began working in the residential architecture world. From early on he was working on projects on Beacon Hill, Harvard Square, Brookline, New York City and as far as Michigan. Andy moved to a few different firms before starting HinterSpace but always had a focus on residential design, but along the way gained experience in the design of spaces for childcare, offices, religious worship and in one case the storage of snow plows!

This variety of experience is something that helps drive Andy’s practice of architecture; every day has new experiences, a new house to explore, a new person to meet, a new piece of history to uncover, a new vista over the next hill that gives a new perspective on the world.