"Designing a Fulfilling Home - From the Inside Out"

Creating a home that fulfills all of the many requirements of the home owner is no easy task.  Building a new home itself or significantly remodeling an existing home is a step that represents a considerable investment of time and money and usually is not taken often.  Consequently, it is very important that the home in all its features and details is worked out and understood before construction begins.
 

This understanding starts with realizing that the purpose for the existence of the home is to fulfill the requirements of the home-owner involved.  The aesthetics of the home should never compromise those requirements.  If the new home expresses the aesthetic cunning of the architect yet does not solve the functional requirements of the client, from an architectural perspective, I would consider the home a failure.  From the home-owner’s perspective, the ongoing frustration of things simply not working well will make it difficult if not impossible to form an emotional bond with the new environment.  Rather than make the client’s life more fulfilling and happier, the home will fight against the client.
 

Creating a fulfilling home starts with an understanding of what the client really wants in that home.    What is the focus of life at home?  Is it family gatherings for meals near the Kitchen?  Playing with the children in a creative space?  Enjoying a romantic fire with your partner in an intimate space?  Dramatic internal views that reflect the dramatic surroundings of the house?  Reveling in the sensuous enjoyment of a whirl-pool tub with a view to a private garden?  The priorities are as unique as the individuals involved.

My strategy to make the understanding explicit is to create a program, or requirements document, that identifies the essential priorities, relationships, and desires for the home.  I encourage clients to list all of the items that their dream-home should have, regardless of how insignificant or grandiose they may seem.  These features can then be organized in a hierarchy of highest to lowest value.  The process of prioritizing makes clear to both the architect and home-owner the difference between essential desires and optional ones.  Thus, when the budget is integrated with the program, eliminating the low-value elements will be far easier.
 

With this well thought-out program in hand, the design process can now start with the focus where it should be, on solving first the functional priorities of the home.  My strategy is to start with the most important part of the home, effectively designing from the inside out.  My first priority is to create an interior environment that fulfills the essence of the highest values of the home-owner, and then to let the rest of the home evolve out from this essential core.  The exterior of the home is an effect of this internal cause rather than the reverse.  The aesthetics of the home help to enhance and express these values.

The design tools I use reflect my focus on the core of the home.   I design with an evolving three dimensional model of the home.  This model can be rendered and viewed from any angle anywhere in the model by both the architect and the home owner.  At every step through the design process, from establishing the forms and relationships of the spaces in the home to determining the finishes on both the interior and exterior of the home, t he client can see virtually exactly what they will be getting, thus avoiding unfortunate surprises after construction is complete.  The technology is such that this same visualization model is used for the detailed drawings of the home, making the sequence from initial design through production integrated and efficient.

The result of this architectural process is a home that is truly the client’s own – one that fulfills and enhances the lives of the new owners.

HOME/RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURAL PROJECTS
NEW HOMES - ADDITIONS - RENOVATIONS