Devin Harper builds the way his family always has. His studio, Hewn + Barter, is named for 1870, when his great great grandfather came to Tignish, PEI to build the church and bartered that craft with fishermen and farmers for a homestead.
Devin grew up outside Charlottetown, the son of a carpenter, in a house his father kept adding onto as the family grew. Gifts were made by hand, and the workshop opened up one tool at a time. Childhood meant full neighbourhood teams and every sport going, from hockey to rugby. At 18 he joined the Naval Reserve, training as an officer, sailing past the Arctic Circle and up to Alaska, diving on ship hulls, and serving some 16 years. It gave him leadership, process, and a calm that holds under pressure.
After a biology degree, he turned to architecture, studying at Boston Architectural College while hauling rock for a landscape architect by day, then earning his Master of Architecture at Dalhousie in 2015. Work at Omar Gandhi Architect, Chapman Taylor in the UK, a design build firm and a commercial practice taught him he needed both worlds.
In 2018 he designed and built a riverbank sauna for his mother in law as a thank you. A year later he founded Hewn + Barter, an architecture practice with its own builders and craftspeople. The studio designs and builds its own projects, from the Nature Folk spa in Dartmouth’s former city hall to Aura Women’s Wellness and Weird Harbour café in Halifax. It also builds for leading architects including Omar Gandhi, and runs a growing millwork shop. Off hours, Devin coaches his two boys and rides Wentworth’s trails.
Hewn + Barter
Upcoming Episode:
Flair Hunter
Sponsors:
Caplan's Appliances
The Doors
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