Matt Littell
Principal at UTILE & Consultant Architect on Blu Homes, LEED AP
Matthew Littell is a Principal of Utile, Inc., a 20 person Architecture and Planning firm in downtown Boston. During his 5 year tenure at Utile, Littell has acted as Principal in charge of the firm’s growing body of work in affordable housing, mostly in and around Boston. In addition, Littell manages many of the firm’s Urban Design and Planning projects, which range in scale and type from detailed streetscape design for the city to broad early-phase conceptual design for developers. The specific role of the regulatory process in design and the opportunities for invention therein are ongoing interests of Littell and the firm, and inform both the Architectural and Urban Design projects.
In addition, Littell has spearheaded the firm’s involvement in projects using prefabricated construction. He is principal in charge of a 25 unit affordable housing development for Urban Edge, Boston’s largest community development corporation. To achieve the client’s budget, Littell has developed a design which can be manufactured in a factory and shipped to the site in pre-finished modular units. Last year, the Massachusetts State College Building Authority engaged Utile to develop a modular prototype for affordable faculty housing. Within the constraints of modular construction, and mindful of the public authority’s complex bidding and procurement processes, Littell developed a family of unit types which could be deployed at any of the system’s suburban or rural schools. Littell has lectured on prefabrication construction technologies at Boston area Universities, and in 2005 chaired a panel on the topic at a Build Boston Housing Seminar.
His interest in prefabrication dates back to his Harvard Graduate School of Design Master’s thesis on manufactured housing, a project for which he received the Boston Society of Architects’ James Templeton Kelly award for the best final design project, as well as the Clifford Wong prize for outstanding design in housing. Littell holds his Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia College, graduating in 1989. He is a LEED Accredited Professional.
