About Us
Inspired by the stunningly beautiful environment of the Maine & New Hampshire Seacoast, at studioB-E we strive to create places, not just buildings, that nourish the individual and enhance the community. We are dedicated to meeting the demands of a changing built landscape by offering design & planning development services that align with the principals of New Urbanism and reflect the vitality of our local context.
For many years, the cornerstone of our practice has been thoughtfully considered, finely crafted, hand drawn, custom architectural design, often working in visually rewarding, but regulatory intense, waterfront areas. We are continuing to move toward a practice that is also focused on housing & incremental development, pulling from a breadth of design and consulting experience to create beautiful and sustainable places that we hope will address the needs of our community, especially for housing, at a neighborhood scale.
With a background in planning and experience that includes service on local land use boards, we marry creative problem solving with the ability to understand the broader community context. Often, we’ve utilized expertise gained by serving on local land use boards to help our client’s realize the potential of difficult coastal sites, property constrained by zoning regulations or buildings requiring historic design review. We take joy in creating places that combine to meet both the needs of our clients and those of the community at large.
We are housing advocates, locally, regionally & nationally, because we believe housing to be, perhaps, the greatest challenge facing contemporary society. We seek to address this challenge by looking to the ways our ancestors solved the same problem in this very place. They built the quaint, walkable, memorable, human scaled communities centered around accessible public space. Those village greens were bounded by public buildings & surrounded by a variety of homes, cottages, small commercial uses, accessory dwellings & multi-generational family compounds, what we now call “Missing Middle” housing, that combined to create the beautiful, livable place we enjoy today.
Thomas Battcock-Emerson, Architect
Tom Emerson is the design principal of studioB-E, concentrating on the creation of context sensitive residential projects, boutique commercial office space and New Urbanism inspired community planning.
Tom studied Architecture and City & Regional Planning at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Prior to starting studioB-E, Tom gained over twenty-five years of architectural & planning experience working for firms in Maryland, Washington D.C., North Carolina and New Hampshire.
Tom has undertaken active participation in many local voluntary planning & development activities that inform his understanding of the built environment. Serving on the Comprehensive Plan, Economic Development and Housing Committees in Kittery, conducting design Charrettes for the Seacoast Workforce Housing Coalition and engaging in housing policy advocacy for GrowSmart Maine & Build Maine allow him a broader view of the effect the profession on peoples' lives. Tom has also contributed to housing advocacy efforts by the Maine Council on Aging and is currently on the Board of Directors for Fair Tide, a non-profit organization that provides permanent housing & case management supportive services to individuals & families experiencing housing insecurity.
Tom has volunteered as a design studio critic, guest lecturer and thesis advisor for the architecture programs at The Catholic University of America, the University of Maryland and the Boston Architectural College.
Tom began his life’s creative journey in architecture as a result of childhood fascinations with drawing & painting, as well as having a penchant for tree house building. Increasingly unique in his profession, Tom often works in a traditional manner, eschewing digital media for the immediacy of a hand drawn aesthetic. His preferred media include graphite, pen & ink and marker & colored pencil. He has been exploring a burgeoning interest in watercolor.
Tom conducts the practice out of a shingled studio, once a garden shed, nestled under a stand of pines at the back of his property in Kittery, Maine where he can look out at the cottages of an old roadside motel scattered on a hill that slopes down to the water.