Our HPEz (High Performance Made Easier™) team has been busy in the past year crafting and installing enclosure systems for numerous projects throughout the country. In addition to designing our own High-Performance enclosure systems, on select projects we offer off-site manufacture of panelization systems as a subcontractor.

One of those projects is a Pre-Certified Passive House near Philadelphia PA where our team partnered with Holzraum System to manufacture and install their Holzraum XP20 Wall Systems on a home designed by architect Macht Architecture and built by Hanson Fine Homebuilding. Our team also installed the floor and roof system on site as well, focusing on the intricate panel joining process to ensure the home meets Passive House thermal envelope standards.

“Holzraum System came to us with this project, they did the 3D computer model configurations of the enclosure and other components. Once they had it in architectural drawings, we helped them break it into panel sections for manufacturing in our HPEz shop,” Kevin Gilbert, Construction Superintendent from our team told us.

DiBella’s Old Fashions Subs is a chain of sandwich shops on the East Coast that traces its roots back to 1918. Founded near our Farmington NY campus in the nearby town of Henrietta, the chain now operates over 40 locations in five states.

Their flagship Italian Market store is still located in the town of Henrietta and our fine woodworking division NEWwoodworks recently built a series of heavy timber craftsmen style tables, butcher block counters, and booth tabletops for the shop out of reclaimed Heart Pine timbers provided by our sister company Pioneer Millworks.

“This was one of the first jobs I worked on when I started working for NEWwoodworks. Putting these tables together and being part of the entire process was really meaningful to me. I had never done any kind of large woodworking joinery before and leaning about how to do that was really rewarding,” shared Shawn, a new member of our fine woodworking division who worked on the project.

For one couple in rural Connecticut the concept was to create a multigenerational space to enjoy with their five children, friends, and extended family. Part of a sweeping master plan for their property, this understated antiqued party barn is intended to adapt as the family grows and ages over time.

Architect Mark P. Finlay, who has a long-standing relationship with the family, defined the core concept for this family barn as a multigenerational building with a long-term plan. The current incarnation of the space is that of a party barn where the owners children can spend time with their friends out of the main house while remaining on the family property.

“It’s a multigenerational design.” Explains Mark. “We worked it through and talked about the functions of the building, how it’s going to work, who is going to use it, how it would be used in 20 years versus now. We really talked through the whole thing. It’s part of a three generation, or 50-year, plan. It is a building with a singular design idea that will work really well in the future because it can adapt to a lot of different functions.”