Diego’s Design Principles
Environmentally Inspired Living
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Nature as guide
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Soft touch on the earth
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Sustainable and green design and construction
Diego Gutierrez works collaboratively with his clients to understand and bring alive their ultimate architectural vision for living and work spaces. To each of his projects, he brings the principles of sustainable design, green construction and environmental awareness, and the results of his work are found throughout the Berkshires and Great Barrington, Mass., nearby New York state, and Northwestern Connecticut.
Born in Bogota, Colombia, he immigrated to New York City at age of nine, attended high school in Manhattan, and graduated in 1987 from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, with a Bachelor in Architecture. He worked for various architectural firms in New York until moving to the Berkshires in 2000. Now in his own practice, he works on a wide range of residential and commercial projects in the tri-state area.
Diego’s love of architecture extends to education: he teaches children about the art and science of architecture through various design workshops at local schools, libraries and community centers, including the Flying Cloud Institute, a year-round educational arts and sciences camp serving children and teens in the Berkshires. His workshops have been funded partly through grants from the Berkshire Taconic Foundation and the Boston Foundation for Architecture.
Diego lives in Housatonic, Massachusetts, a village in the Town of Great Barrington. He has been a member of various local committees, including the Energy Committee, which was instrumental in gaining state designation for Great Barrington as a “Green Community.” He has been a member of the Steering Committee of Friends of the Great Barrington Libraries, an all volunteer group dedicated to supporting and promoting the libraries in Great Barrington. He assisted the Parks Committee of Great Barrington in developing a Master Plan for the Housatonic Village Green. Currently is on the Board of the Clinton Church Restoration organization, a non-profit group created in 2016 to preserve the Clinton AME Zion Church Building, the oldest African-American church in the Berkshires, and covert it to a Center of African-American History and Culture in the Berkshires. The Building is in Great Barrington.
He is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and is licensed in the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. The firm is a member of the Southern Berkshires Chamber of Commerce.
Education
Bachelor of Architecture, 1987, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
Architectural Studies Abroad:
Pratt Institute in Rome
Rome, Italy
Spring 1986
Universidad de Los Andes
Bogota, Colombia
Spring 1984
Stuyvesant High School
Manhattan, NY
Grants
Berkshire Hills Fund for Excellence, Spring 2009
Boston Foundation for Architecture, 2010