STUDIO PRINCIPLES
h+ma is an architecture studio focusing on residential and commercial projects with an emphasis on work that is both design-focused and unique to its context. We are drawn to projects that hold the potential to impact communities with care, positivity, and understanding. We endeavor to put forward carefully detailed and well-crafted design for all users and within any community.
Our work strives toward a careful balance of light and shadow, to be both unique and contextual, and convey through its aesthetic that good work is possible through good design. Our body of work spans a broad range of scales and typologies, from new private houses, rental apartments, existing private residential additions and remodels, private offices, outdoor living areas and facilities, private rentals, rural cabins, and municipal buildings.
We find that every project derives from a set of principles that guide our hands and minds, and we implement those with each project we are commissioned. They serve as the source of strength we draw from to land at a good balance between vision and reality:
DESIGN is a way of life.
COLLABORATION is key to any successful project.
EDUCATION is constant.
KNOWLEDGE is our greatest strength.
HUMAN EXPERIENCE is the heart of any creative endeavor.
GOOD DESIGN takes time.
PEOPLE
NATHANIEL E. HOCKER, ASSOCIATE AIA
FOUNDER | MANAGING PARTNER
Nathaniel is a designer first and foremost, who received his Bachelors degree in architecture from the University of Kentucky College of Design in 2012, followed by a Masters degree in architecture in 2014. He has worked for several architecture firms in Lexington, KY, working on projects ranging from $3-110 million, from residential to the commercial sectors of architectural and construction projects. His standards are high relative to the built environment, as equity and justice are elements of his approach to art and design.
He is an artist, avid reader of architectural publications, art and book collector. He also enjoys writing articles on life, spirituality, and art. As a museum goer and traveler to architectural sites around the nation, lifelong learning is a constant endeavor within the life he leads.
2016: AIA Emerging Professional Award
2019: Leadership Lexington Graduate
CASEY RYAN MATHER, NCARB/CPHC
MANAGING PARTNER
Casey offers a diverse background of twenty-one years of design and project coordination experience. While working on his Master‘s degree in architecture from the University of KY in 2006, Casey co-founded the Center for Sustainable Cities Design Studio in Lexington, KY. His work there focused on net-zero energy, sustainability-driven, environmentally conscious single-family residential projects, energy efficient retrofits and remodels, and sustainability research at the city-region scale. He has presented his sustainability research at conferences in the United States, China, and Morocco. Casey then moved on to Chicago, IL where he completed nearly six years of work at OKW Architects as a Senior Associate/Senior Job Captain. There, he focused on commercial/retail architecture, restaurants/hospitality, senior living, corporate office interiors, existing retail retrofit/remodeling, and historic preservation. In 2020 Casey became a Certified Passive House Consultant.
Ekco Design is now HOCKER+MATHER ARCHITECTURE.
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