Archiphernalia

Archiphernalia is a multi-disciplinary design firm, located in Exeter, New Hampshire. We are dedicated to the pursuit of architecture, its armamentaria, and its peripheries. Our design work is deeply rooted in the visual arts and narrative storytelling.

Our Approach

At its core, architecture is a narrative process, built on imagination, description, and iteration. Architects imagine that the buildings they design will have an impact on the people who inhabit them, the people who interact inside, or those who simply pass by on the street. These imagined interactions - both within and around a building - are a central element of the design process, and one that is often overlooked.

Focusing on the lives of the people who will use the building, strengthens the future impact of the design. When we practice storytelling outside of architecture, we imagine the lives of others. We try to understand their desires and aspirations. When this effort to imagine other worlds, possibilities, and motivations is performed adjacent to the design process, it helps imbue empathy into everything we do. Often, Archiphernalia's narrative work relies on a particular architectural impulse, but at other times, it feeds the architecture and visual art elements of the practice.

Similarly, the design process is relies heavily on visual imagination. In order to design, one must, at some point, translate desires into images. Archiphernalia's visual art output is not simply a by-product of the design process, but an integral part of the practice, one that feeds ideas, motivations, and aspirations to the other two elements.

The result of these three elements is a well-rounded, laterally-thinking, polymath practice. Although all of the elements are intertwined, we break our work into three categories:

Architecture

Architecture is driven by a progressive desire for change. We work with clients to imagine the future and design buildings that not only fill a need, but contribute in unique ways to our clients' daily lives. Our approach to architecture combines elements of visual art, storytelling, and construction knowledge. We celebrate lateral thinking. Our architectural work is intentionally varied in size and function, which allows us to draw from a multitude of experiences and disciplines to design unique spaces for unique clients. 

Narratives

Storytelling is at the center of our work at Archiphernalia. We construct narratives not only to explain our architecture, but to create written and graphic stories on their own. These primarily take the form of graphic novels, constructed of collaged images, but also include short stories and other written work. As mentioned below, collages are powerful narrative tools. When combined to form a story, by design, they include countless embedded backstories and potential tangents. It is this weight that makes them so exciting.

Et Cetera

Et Cetera encompasses Archiphernalia's varied visual art output. In recent years, this work has predominantly involved digital photographic collages, but also includes photography, painting, sculpture, and other media. Collage is a powerful medium that is closely linked to both architecture and storytelling. Each of the images that make up a collage carries its own baggage. In other words, there are embedded memories, histories, and emotions within each clipped image. Just like words or phrases, the images have complex etymologies that may be signifiers of alternative, but unresolved adventures, like unfinished stories overheard on the subway, or fleeting street scenes observed from a moving bus.

Archiphernalia is a registered trade name for Studio Archiphernalia, LLC.

Archiphernalia was founded by Thaddeus Jusczyk, AIA in 2017. Tad worked in smaller firms in New England before spending eight years in a large Boston architecture firm, where he focused on academic and healthcare projects. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from Brown University, and a master of architecture degree from MIT.

Tad's work has been widely published, awarded, and exhibited around the world. He currently teaches architectural design at Northeastern University. Previously, he has taught graduate design courses at the Boston Architectural College, and been a frequent guest critic at design schools in New England, including MIT, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and the Wentworth Institute of Technology.