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Profile

Bates Masi + Architects LLC, a full-service architectural firm with roots in New York City and the East End of Long Island for over 45 years, responds to each project with extensive research in related architectural fields, material, craft and environment for unique solutions as varied as the individuals or groups for whom they are designed. The focus is neither the size nor the type of project but the opportunity to enrich lives and enhance the environment. The attention to all elements of design has been a constant in the firm’s philosophy. Projects include urban and suburban residences, schools, offices, hotels, restaurants, retail and furniture in the United States, Central America and the Caribbean. The firm has received 43 design awards since 2003 and has been featured in national and international publications including The New York Times, New York Magazine, Architectural Digest, Architectural Record, Metropolitan Home, and Dwell. Residential Architect Magazine selected Bates Masi one of their 50 Architect’s We Love. A gallery exhibition in May 2010 featured the firm’s earlier work from 1960-70.

 

Paul Masi spent childhood summers in Montauk and currently resides in Amagansett. He received a Bachelor of Architecture from Catholic University and a Masters of Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He worked at Richard Meier & Partners before joining this firm in 1998.

Harry Bates, a resident of East Hampton, received a Bachelor of Architecture from North Carolina State University. After ten years with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, he was in private practice in New York City for 17 years before moving the firm to Southampton on the East End in 1980. Our offices are currently located in Sag Harbor with plans to relocate to a new LEED Certified office building of our own design in East Hampton.

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Northwest Landing

Lot size: 0.51 acres

Building size: 1,895 sq. ft.

Location: East Hampton, NY

Program: Single Family Residence

Straddling freshwater wetlands and a tidal estuary at just six feet above sea level, this house’s site demands extraordinary sensitivity to environmental concerns. Local zoning restricts the structure’s maximum coverage and encroachment on the wetlands areas, while FEMA requirements set the first floor structure above the base flood elevation. The house’s basic massing is therefore predetermined, limited to a one story, 1,900 square foot design in 4:7 proportion, raised eight feet above the ground. The spaces within this envelope are arranged, articulated, and fenestrated with an innovative structural system that infuses the house’s inner areas with light and circulating air.

Whereas most waterfront construction uses pilings to establish an artificial ground plane upon which a conventional house is built, in this project these structural members are integral: 16 wide, exposed, glue-laminated piles stake out the enclosing walls for each of the three bedrooms and extend continuously from the ground through the roof. The residual spaces between these piles house “utility” functions: closet, desk, laundry, pantry, and shower compartment. In addition to these conventional utilities, three vertical voids are opened between the piles to serve the spaces around them. Without occupying any of the limited allowed coverage these open areas add considerable value by improving the

house’s interior environmental quality and diminishing its impact on the local environment. The benefit is threefold: each opening draws light though the interior spaces to the carport below, conducts rainwater from the roof deck to a rainwater management system, and ventilates by siphoning air through the middle of the structure.

At the roof the projecting piles serve to divide the space between a deck directly coinciding with the living areas below and a modular planting system installed directly above each bedroom. This planting system further minimizes the structure’s footprint and environmental impact. At the ground level directly underneath the main living spaces, there is room for storing the cars, boats, and yard equipment usually found under houses raised on pilings.

By allowing these voids to permeate through the house, the owners have multiple visual connections to the landscape from below, within and above the house, encouraging a sense of place.

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