Unique Designer Homes for an Affordable Price

You don’t have to be rich to afford the house of your dreams, says William Massie, associate professor of architecture. Massie has devised a new computer-driven building process that dramatically cuts down on costs of building a home while increasing overall quality. His innovations have attracted the attention of prominent publications such as Business Week and Esquire magazines.

Esquire deemed Massie one of its “best and brightest” in its December 2002 issue, “The Best and the Brightest: 50 Pages of People and Ideas That Will Change Our Lives.” Business Week said that Massie “is on the cusp of becoming a well-known name in the field of architecture,” comparing him to architect Frank Gehry.

“People don’t have to pay a huge premium to live in a beautiful and somewhat experimental space,” Massie says. “And, we know from the auto and aerospace industries that the ability to develop complex shapes is not just for aesthetic purposes. In making an automobile side panel, for instance, you can use less material to form a shape that is stronger on impact. I’m applying the same fabrication processes to architecture.”

Pictured clockwise: "Playa Urbana/Urban Beach," Long Island City, N.Y; "House for a Photographer," Ghent, N.Y.; "Big Sky House" (front and side views), Townsend, Mont.

Massie digitally designs a home and then breaks it down into small interlocking pieces. Many of these pieces—as few as six for a small house—Massie manufactures himself. He uses inexpensive but durable materials, such as cut steel and concrete.

Computer-driven laser-cutting and milling machines shape the pieces at the shop of Massie’s four-person firm, Massiearchitecture, which he recently relocated to Troy. The pieces then are delivered to the site for the contractor to fit together like a giant puzzle.

“Architects usually design abstract drawings and give them to a contractor, who then must reinterpret them,” Massie says. “My process provides a way of moving directly from the designing stage to construction, saving time and money.”

In 2000, Massie received a Progressive Architecture award from Architecture Magazine for his “Big Belt House” in Montana, which is designed to fit naturally into the surrounding landscape.

Massie’s most recent completed project took top honors in a contest sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and P.S.1. Contemporary Art Center in Queens, N.Y. His work, “Playa Urbana/ Urban Beach,” was selected the winner of the annual MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program, one of the most prestigious for young architects. Massie’s “urban beach” includes brightly colored artificial ponds and laser-cut steel structures set in P.S.1’s outdoor courtyard.

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