5 Under 40 Winner Darien Fortier

Portrait by Bruce Rogovin

Photograph by Aaron Kraft/Krafty

Photograph by Aaron Kraft

Photograph by Trent Bell

Photograph by Trent Bell

At heart, Darien Fortier is a maker. That she chose architecture as the career that would best fulfill her need to create also speaks to her deep belief in the power of collaboration. “I find it really rewarding to get to know people at an intimate level,” she says. “I enjoy helping people navigate from vision to execution.”

Fortier earned a BA in architecture at Northeastern University, then worked at architectural firms in Seattle, Washington, and in New York’s Hudson Valley and Manhattan before signing on with Hacin in Boston, where she is now a senior associate.

The firm calls itself an interdisciplinary architecture and design studio, and it’s that emphasis on “interdisciplinary” that makes Hacin such a good fit for Fortier. “I love working as a team with the architecture, interiors, and visual identity disciplines,” she says. “And it’s what I love about residential work—working with fabricators, builders, craftsmen, and really interesting clients. I find that kind of collaboration highly energizing, and it produces unexpected, unique, smart, considered, and richly detailed, conceptually thorough work.”

Fortier exercises her creativity outside of her job, too. In 2013, she cofounded Boston Makers, a nonprofit space in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood that provides access to digital and manual fabrication tools. When Covid-19 hit, she helped organize a citywide effort to manufacture thousands of masks for communities in need. And in what little spare time she has, she designs and fabricates jewelry.

In architecture, she says, “I strive to design homes that stand the test of time, in design and in function, that are high performing and low-maintenance, that are rich in design and in architecture, that are contextually and experientially strong, and that families and communities cherish for generations.”