Growing up in the Colorado mountains, Amanda Martocchio loved sketching and outdoor activities—influences carried throughout her career. Studying at Cornell, she switched from art history to hands-on architecture. In 2004, after working in Italy, earning a master’s degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and practicing in a large New York firm, she and her husband relocated their growing family to New Canaan. There, she established her namesake firm, Amanda Martocchio (it rhymes, she smiles, with Pinocchio) Architecture, located near their home and not far from the mid-century modern Glass House that she admires “for its perfect proportions, simplicity and integration with the landscape.” At Martocchio’s firm, her veneration of design and the natural world is carried out in prize-winning spaces that respond to their surroundings with warmth and natural light.
Why are so many of your projects focused on nature?
Being able to look out at the sky, to see the sunset, to hear the birds is important to humanity. I think it can really change your life, impact how you feel on a given day. Nature provides a sense of well-being.
What does wellness mean to you?
It has both physical and metaphysical components: Physically, you feel comfortable in the space, the temperature is right, you can see well, you feel safe. The metaphysical is intangible; you feel good, uplifted.
What sparks design inspiration?
You go to the site and respond to your feelings about it. It can be very visceral. What part do you want to celebrate and elevate? Where should the structure stand, where does it belong on the site? What views do you want to look at? What do you want to frame? That can lead to laying out a floor plan and the relationship of the spaces.
What features engender a feeling of wellness?
Components of the landscape can be brought inside, so much is all about the senses. Use natural materials—wood, metals, stones—things that are tactile. Green growing things connect you to the world and other living things. The sound of an indoor water fountain can be very soothing.
How do you go about protecting the world’s resources?
Every decision we make has an impact on some level of the environment, so we have to be thoughtful about how we design and specify materials. We’re always looking for materials that are easily recycled and have low carbon impact. And we’re interested in durability and longevity—things that are well built, so they don’t have to be torn down and redone.
How do you integrate your contemporary structures with more traditional Connecticut design?
What’s interesting is that the vernacular, the classic “farmhouse” is very functional, spare, simple and elegant. That is essentially what we see in our more modern designs and that is compatible. The modern solution seems to be a very logical response to what is there.
You serve as an advisor on local building projects, and you collaborated on a “Puesto de Salud” maternal healthcare facility in Nicaragua. What do you gain from community involvement?
While it’s gratifying to work on the intimate scale of helping a family make a home, I’m a citizen architect, and it’s working with a more diverse group of people and giving back, having an impact on the community at large.
What is a building you’d like to design?
A center where special needs, neurodivergent adults can live and thrive in a community connected to the broader community. A small, light-filled building with private sleeping rooms and shared space for meal preparation, performances, gardening, play, keeping therapy animals, enjoying nature. Walkable to town, it would have overnight spaces for caregivers and visiting families. It is a dream project for this architect and mother of a special-needs adult.