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Plugged in

Architect Adolfo Perez blends natural materials with cutting-edge electronics.

Adolfo Perez is an architect with one foot in the future and the other firmly planted in New England soil. He leans toward contemporary style but knows that often, working in this region, he has to "pay homage to the existing historical styles." He likes to work with natural materials, such as wood and stone, "as a palette to craft the interiors," but he also enjoys the high-tech world.

In his Newton Centre firm, all these interests are put to good use in current projects, many of them complex, large-scale residential renovations. Often, Perez is asked to design special areas that reflect the particular interests of the owners - a library, a media room, an indoor pool, or a mini-gym. On such projects, Perez also likes to create walls of built-in cabinetry and perhaps a dramatic marble or granite fireplace.

Perez, 43, a husband and father of three young children, was born in Cuba, but his parents fled the Castro regime in 1961, when Perez was 4. "My parents, who eventually settled in Miami, where I was raised, were a great influence," he says. His mother, especially, was always emphasizing the importance of education, and she was rewarded by her son's admission to Harvard College in 1976. He went on to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, "and I've been here, a transplant to New England, ever since," he says.

Before opening his own firm in 1993, he worked for two architects who had been his teachers at the Graduate School of Design, Rodolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti. At their firm, Perez worked on a seaside housing development and on some small residential projects that were thought of as "little jewel boxes, with lots of detailing," he says. "Machado and Silvetti were very detail-oriented, so they were a definite influence." Next, working with a Korean architect, he helped design a proposed contemporary art museum near Seoul.

In home design, he believes "the technology should disappear into the architecture." In a Brookline house, he designed a media room with five TVs so the owner could watch five Sunday football games simultaneously. It has a 60-inch rear-projection screen, plus four 32-inch TVs. The system is operated by a computerized touch screen with preset menus rather than remote controls.

But high technology can also be made "invisible and at the service of the larger design," says Perez. He offers clients centralized computer-operated lighting systems for their houses, with a range of lighting combinations, from one bulb to the whole house. "You could turn off all the lights in the house after you've gone to bed, with a keypad right on the bed, or you can program some to turn on and off at a particular time," he says. "Rather than 10 switches on a wall, there's one little keypad with buttons."

Perez understands, though, that these systems are for people who are comfortable with their complexity. If some clients would rather have a light switch that they can turn on and off, that's fine. Technology is "an option, not a given," says Perez. "To me, the architectural qualities of the design concept are the most important thing."