A good house has the qualities of a good friend, offering support, hospitality, intelligence, and good humor. Listening carefully to clients and paying close attention to the building site, I design houses and additions that fit both. I hope that the projects you see here won¹t just show you the quality of my work, but will also give you an idea of why I do it.

I started out as a carpenter and cabinetmaker, and I take great pride and pleasure in building things well. In my early years of woodworking, I learned that there can be much more to building well than sound construction and that good design involves more than making things look nice. Studying architecture, I learned how buildings work, and how space, light and scale can work together to create places that make people comfortable and happy.

My goal is not just to build beautiful houses, but to make them beautiful places to live. And to hear from my clients, "Living in the house is a pleasure. Looking at it is a delight."

Joseph B Lanza Design + Building delivers an unusual combination of architectural ingenuity and hands-on construction expertise. We design, build and renovate houses on the South Shore and Cape Cod. We also provide design-only services in our immediate area and beyond, with completed projects in Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania.

Over the last twenty years, Joseph B Lanza has worked as a designer, carpenter, cabinetmaker and job captain on projects as small as a piece of furniture and as large as the renovation of the Texas State Capitol. His architectural designs and construction techniques have been published in books and national magazines. Joe holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor¹s degree in history from Georgetown University.