Green Story

Launched in 1986 by John Merkle and Bill Soupcoff, TMS Architects has since grown into one of the region’s most high profile and trusted architectural firms, servicing both residential and commercial clients in numerous communities and across industries and sectors. With a list of projects that includes renovations of Wentworth By the Sea, the Portsmouth Music Hall and Regeneration Park, TMS has serviced some of the most recognizable and historic venues in the area. In 2007, the firm added Shannon Alther and Rob Carty to its team of partners, along the way expanding their scope to include a number of energy-efficient and green-oriented projects.

When it comes to the projects they chose to pursue, the team at TMS doesn’t just go for the cookie cutter houses or office buildings. Indeed, the firm prides itself on taking on jobs that are as challenging as they are rewarding, and places a high premium on projects that involve historic preservation and renovation. For them, renovating historic buildings is not only important from a cultural perspective, but from an environmental one as well. “To us, it doesn’t make sense to just tear down a building and throw everything in a landfill,” says TMS Principle Shannon Alther. “That’s why everyone here gets really excited about these sorts of projects, because in the end you can’t get any greener than reusing an old building.”

In 2004, Alther was looking for a company to help improve and beautify his lawn. A co-worker of Alther’s recommended Andrew Kellar, owner of Simply Green Biofuels, who at the time was still in the business of organic hydroseeds. The two became good friends, and when the time came in 2009 for Simply Green to expand by opening a state-of-the-art filling station and “Congreenience Store” in Dover, Alther helped Kellar with some of the space’s unique design concepts. In 2010, Kellar again sought the help of Alther, only this time on a much larger scale, as Simply Green sought to turn an abandoned Portsmouth car dealership into a new, net zero energy green business mall. The new Regeneration Park will not only be a one-stop-shop for a number of local green businesses and organizations; it will also serve as a testament to the power and viability of green architecture which TMS itself embodies.

Going forward, TMS is excited to not only expand their portfolio of green-minded projects, but to green their every day practices as well. Instead of having an office worker drive boxes full of paper materials to a Portsmouth recycling center every week, they’ve since instituted a single-stream recycling bin – no small thing for an office that does as much paper work as a high-volume architecture firm. But whatever changes they make in the office itself, one thing is for certain: TMS will continue to take pride in educating clients, customers and the community at large about the importance of improving architectural and energy efficiency, while at the same time helping maintain the unique culture and history of the Seacoast.