OUr Story

Handshouse Studio was co-founded in 2002 by Rick Brown and Laura Brown, with founding Board Members, Cary Wolinsky, Joel McCarty and Kendrick Smith. It has gained international recognition for its pedagogical method of connecting people and institutions to carry out bold and complex educational built projects.

Handshouse creates projects outside of the traditional classroom that energize history through the (re)construction of large objects. Through the intensive investigation of a single object, doors open to a wide range of related subjects—usually studied independently—creating a richly layered understanding of a moment in history, a literal three-dimensional view of an historic object, and an interactive and engaging understanding of who built the object, how it was built, and why.

Handshouse collaborates with educational organizations and institutions providing students the opportunity to work with educators, artists, craftspeople, scholars, historians, architects, engineers, anthropologists, archeologists and builders in a wide range of subjects. Our intense workshops create a dynamic learning experience where everyone contributes to the process and everyone learns. Students, experts, teachers, specialists, all become learners. Through this immersive investigative process, Handshouse Studio participants work together to remake historic objects, and bring to life pieces of cultural heritage that played important roles in the creation of our world today.

Handshouse reaches large audiences regionally, nationally, and internationally through exhibitions, lectures, films, workshops, and publications. Handshouse has been published in magazines such as National Geographic, Archeology, Smithsonian, Fine Homebuilding, Timber Frame Magazine, and through national and international news media such as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, CNN, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, The Jewish Daily Forward, and the Tablet. Handshouse projects have been exhibited in national and international museums such as POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw and the International Spy Museum in Washington DC. Handshouse has collaborated with film companies such as Trillium Studios, PBS’s NOVA, Discovery Channel,  National Geographic Television. The award winning documentary film Raise the Roof created by Trillium Studios about the Gwozdziec Synagogue ReConstruction Handshouse created for the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews can be viewed here.

Past Handshouse projects have included building an operable replica of a wooden submarine from the American Revolution, reconstructing the Gwozdziec wooden synagogue in Poland, recreating several of the human-powered wooden cranes used to build many of Europe’s architectural wonders, remaking some of the historic gourd banjos that played a foundational tune in America’s music history, exploring authentic art and form of the legendary Trojan Horse, and venturing into the worlds of many other fascinating historic objects with our hands.