Orange sunrise
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Longtime powerhouses in NCAA sports, the Orange of Syracuse University have lately been putting their professional stamps on regional blueprints.
In 1989, Richard S. Granoff, president of R. S. Granoff Architects of Greenwich, founded his firm, now on West Putnam Avenue, from his Greenwich apartment. The offices now house a 20-person architecture firm, employing 10 Syracuse graduates, one of them a partner, Ken Andersen.
Granoff has established the Richard S. Granoff Endowed Scholarship Fund at SyracuseUniversity and begun to spread the word of green architecture.
“A few years back, we were having a hard time finding employees,” said Granoff, a 1984 Syracuse alumnus. He and his partners began to recruit from Syracuse.
“We hired two young graduates right out of Syracuse,” said Granoff. “We really feel connected to the Syracuse community. There”™s loyalty to the school. As I”™ve done well, I believe in giving back.
“Syracuse has a lot of very well-known, prestigious architects,” said Granoff. “My education has allowed me to do what I”™m doing here so I feel that giving back is important. I always encourage potential architecture students to go for it.”
Granoff designs both residential and commercial projects that range from northern Fairfield County into Westchester County, N.Y., New York City and Long Island.
Granoff recently finished the adaptive re-use of the Mianus pump station in Greenwich into what is now the Greenwich Adult Day Care Center.
“It was very rewarding,” said Granoff. “We”™re also currently finishing up a very large hedge fund project in Greenwich for Plainfield Asset Management.”
Granoff”™s firm is also reworking the main street town square of Armonk, N.Y., with a 60,000 square foot, mixed-use project that combines retail space and condominiums.
“We”™re a diverse practice,” said Granoff.
Granoff supports college and high school internships, inviting students in the Greenwich High School”™s career day for the past three years. area to get a taste for the industry. Granoff has also taken part in
Granoff also recently achieved professional accreditation in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and has begun to give lectures on the topic. “We”™ve embraced this really over the past three or four years,” he said.
Granoff said the categories covered by the LEED certification are going to become more and more important in the world of architecture, especially now that the concept is becoming understood and mainstreamed.
“Good architecture has always been green,” said Granoff. “The Roman”™s had radiant-heat floors in their buildings.”
According to Granoff, architects have a responsibility to inculcate themselves with the new practices that are trending from accessory to necessity.
“The LEED approach is a holistic concept, it”™s all about teamwork,” said Granoff. “It is a very important part of my philosophy and this practice and it does tie back into schools because the schools are now teaching it as an integral part of the profession. As a profession, we have a responsibility and an opportunity to change the world.”
Granoff said that creating structures that account for half the carbon footprint in the world is not something he thinks justifiable, especially when that reality need not be. “As a profession architects are really coming together to say we can really make a difference here,” said Granoff.Â