WILMINGTON — Joseph Cincotta, the principal architect of LineSync Architecture, admits that his grand ambition is to build a skyscraper and an airport.
Cincotta is well aware that the prospects of a design firm in Wilmington, Vermont building either of them is pretty remote.
But Joseph believes strong creativity starts with imagining goals that seem outside one's near reach.
LineSync Architecture is an award-winning firm with various residential, commercial, and public projects in Vermont, New York and throughout the United States. It designs high profile innovative municipal, corporate and unique residential environments with a green and sustainable emphasis.
The firm has been a winner of numerous AIA Vermont awards, and was recognized as one of North America's Top 1,000 Architecture Firms in the 2015 Almanac of Architecture and Design 2015, one of only four Vermont firms so honored.
Founded in September 1988 by Cincotta and his wife, Julie Lineberger, LineSync initially was a home-based business. The couple worked out of one room in their rented home in Whitingham. Today, LineSync Architecture has 13 employees in addition to the owners.
A graduate of Harvard's Graduate School of Design, Cincotta also teaches sustainable design at Southern Vermont College.
He credits his family teaching him the core values of working hard, while balancing art and life.
“As Cicero wrote, life is short, art is long,” says Cincotta. “I speak the Queens English, that is Queens, New York City, where I was born and raised,” says Cincotta. “Brattleboro has some of the grit where I grew up.”
He said that his mother “raised us guided by Adele Davis, the natural food guru. That meant no sugar for six days a week until we could escape to our grandmother on Sundays. My father was a builder of small structures no more than three or four stories.”
Cincotta oversees the creative side of the firm, while Lineberger guides the business aspects of LineSync. “My wife learned from her father, an entrepreneur who began several start up businesses,” says Joseph.
Lineberger is a graduate of Harvard's School of Education, and had a previous career in international development that included managing and participating in projects throughout the world.
A past chair of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility Board of Directors, she led many workshops, and is a consultant on various aspects of business management. She is also involved in various community efforts.
Cincotta confesses that he is happy to leave the practical end of the business to Lineberger.
“My wife says my head is in the clouds quite often,” he admits. “But I feel that is where a designer should be, because there you can discover the highest and best things to imagine and create.”
Opening their business in Vermont was initially Lineberger's idea, but Cincotta quickly saw the wisdom of the move.
“I was groomed for big firms in London or Milan,” he says. “I was just a New York City boy heading towards corporate business. However, my wife said that I'm a pioneer and too independent to be happy with the inherent restrictions of a big firm. I would be better off working for myself.”
Cincotta had to agree.
“Vermont is a great place to work from,” he says. “There are two reasons we located LineSync Architecture in Wilmington. The first is that Vermont has always had room for people to be what they want to be. Here, when people march to a different drummer, it has always been okay.
“Since I certainly see myself marching that way, I felt immediately at home. In Vermont, that is not just a liberal maxim, but is considered a God-given right to do or create what you want, and not piss people off for doing it.”
The second reason for picking the location was the natural resources to be found in Vermont.
“There are so many materials to work with here,” he says. “It was as a kid vacationing in Vermont that I first experienced raw milk.”
For Cincotta, raw milk becomes a metaphor of what is so special about Vermont.
“At LineSync, we like to work with all that good which is already there,” he says. “Our ultimate goal is sustainability.”
Cincotta is not about to refashion the world in his image.
“Mother Earth can do fine without me. I always suggest to a client that we work with what we have, rather than working from scratch. Our vision is to move from A to B with the least effort, all with what is around us, rather than importing all that custom-made stuff.”
The couple were drawn to Vermont because of its longstanding environmental ethos.
“Vermont was 'green,' when green was just a color,” says Lineberger. “The state was always onto sustainable design.”
Cincotta feels that Vermont's differences, even from its neighbor on the east bank of the Connecticut River, is striking.
“New Hampshire has outlet malls everywhere,” he says. “Vermont has resisted such commercialization of its landscape, even so far as to ban freeway advertisements. That law was put into effect by a Republican governor, I would like to add. All which shows the Vermont vision goes beyond party politics.”
Cincotta has been designing sustainable structures since 1988. He believes that “green design” has long been rooted in Yankee frugality and common sense.
He said his design philosophy could be called “Green under the radar,” where energy efficiency and the use of natural materials achieve the highest standards of beauty with the greatest economy of means.
Earlier this year, LineSync Architecture of Wilmington received AIA Honorable Mention for “Resilient River Apartment,” a comprehensive rehabilitation of a river-sited structure that had been eviscerated as the result of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.
The firm's challenge was to redesign the dwelling to be both “hydrophobic” and waterproof.
Jurors said, “The project opened a lot of discussion about how to make these places desirable and livable again, while reducing fear of the next big flood. The concept was great, including helping to keep a downtown area viable in light of natural disasters...This was an innovative response to the inherent risks of a river site.”
“We were surprised at the award, since the project was so small,” says Cincotta. “The apartment was only a 700 foot dwelling located on a low river level and was crazy cheap.
“Not surprisingly, it was one of the first places in Wilmington to be destroyed by flood of Tropical Storm Irene. Water came in all the windows and the apartment became a submarine. The space was filled with a couple of feet of mud. The community pitched in to remove the mud, but on the second day mold spores took over. The space needed a complete overall.”
LineSync's goal was that nothing like that would ever happen again.
Cincotta renovated the apartment using the principles of Resilient Design as formulated by Alex Wilson, the founder of BuildingGreen in Brattleboro, an 18-person company that has served the design and construction industry with information on environmentally responsible design and construction since 1985.
“Resilience means the capacity to adapt to changing conditions and to maintain vitality in the face of disturbance,” Cincotta explains. “We wanted to design to design a space that has the flexibility to withstand a disaster like Irene and bounce back with minimum effort, a space that could be standing 100 years from now.”
LineSync works on a wide variety of projects, from multi-million dollar public works to less than $200,000 private residences.
“We decide what projects to go forward with depending on how we relate to the people who approach us,” Cincotta says. “It's two visions that come together in poetry. Or perhaps the more exact word would be 'dance.' For all kinds of reasons, a client takes a few steps. Then we get more adventurous and take another. We turn here and then there. And through this dance something wonderful can be created.”
Cincotta wants to emphasize that LineSync's goal is never to be wasteful.
“Even multimillion dollar projects have a budget,” he says. “I feel it to be a personal mark of failure to waste money. I try to solve a client's goals as expeditiously as possible. This is not to make design a matter of just dollars and cents, because within a design budget being playful is also important, all worked out elegantly.”
Although Cincotta and Lineberger are very pleased with life and business in Vermont, wouldn't they make more money if their firm was located in a more high-powered location than Wilmington?
“It's crazy how money plays out in different places,” Cincotta says. “I know architects who make double what I do and have less quality of life. And it is not just that money goes further in Vermont. Here I look around and see the wonderful world that surrounds us. And that is priceless.”
But what about that airport and skyscraper?
“Who knows what may ultimately come our way,” Cincotta says with a wry lilt in his voice. “We're dreamers here, so nothing ultimately is out of reach.”