#ARCHITECTURE HOUSE DESIGN PROFESSIONAL#

So, you don’t want architecture with a capital “A”. Of course, there are lots of other items in the secret sauce that makes a great home, and often it’s as much about what we leave out, as it is about what we include. I spent more time out of that home, than in it … bundling up the kids to go to the park (because the yard was south-facing too), or running lots of errands. One home we rented was dark and cold, even on the brightest of days.

#ARCHITECTURE HOUSE DESIGN PROFESSIONAL#

All were of varying sizes, condition, location and design … and reinforced my professional knowledge of what makes a home an enjoyable place to be.Ĭertain homes, in hindsight, showed how essential natural light is in indoor environments. When I say ‘live’, I mean for a period of 6 months or more. In the 18 years since I left the home I grew up in, I’ve lived in 14 different houses (including my current one). It impacts how comfortable you are, how hot and cold you are (without artificial heating or cooling), the money you spend on maintaining it, and it affects your health and well-being. When homes are poorly designed, it has massive ramifications on your lifestyle.īelieve it or not, the way your home is designed, actually determines how you lead your life in it. Great design simply gets out of your way. The thing that forces us to compromise, create a work-around, or avoid altogether, in order to go about our day. I’m sure all of us have experienced the inconvenience factor that comes with poor design. I think this is a very apt description for our homes. The best definition of great design I’ve found applies to many other industries as well as your home, and was said by Seth Godin: The function of architectural design is something you sometimes only reflect on when you have cause to remember that you might not have had the privacy you now enjoy, or the light or the convenience or the comfort or the many things you can now take for granted but you would have spent just as much for a poor design.” So what is great design? It’s a bit like having good health – you don’t think about it until you remember being sick. Its benefits remain, inherent, regardless of age and without the need for any further input. The better design is not something which degrades or needs maintenance. “It costs the same to build a wall whether it is in the right place to contribute to the design (light, airflow, privacy, proportion) or the wrong place. I asked a client once if they thought it had been anymore expensive to achieve a great design result for their home. Great design is about having certain priorities, making different decisions upfront, and embedding design at the point it will make a massive difference to your home, and the life it helps you lead. (You can read the 6 most common reasons I hear why people don’t use architects here) Great design makes the difference They only do cutting-edge innovation I’m not interested in.They force their opinions about my home on me.I don’t want Architecture with a capital “A”Ī client once said this to me, and it captures the challenges that homeowners experience with architects.: How your neighbour creates their home impacts how you get to live – how it relates to you, your street, respects (or ignores) your right to natural light, security and privacy. In doing so, we seriously diminish our homes, our streets, our neighbourhoods and our communities. Ultimately, we are missing significant opportunities. The decisions we make in create them are permanent. The saddest thing in this is that the homes we build can outlive us, and impact other families, other generations. They wear poorly, they’re difficult to maintain. They’re uncomfortable to live in, they cost more than they needed to, or will create ongoing premiums in living expenses. However, what I’m seeing is that, time and time again – regardless of how they’re created – people are building homes that just don’t work. I have seen architects fail their clients, and homeowners with a really keen understanding of home design do a great job. I think that (as with any profession) there are those who are great at what they do, and those who are not … but still get to put up a shingle and charge people money. Are we missing something?Įven as an architect, I understand that architects are not for everyone. As long as you meet your local planning requirements, and national building legislation and standards, you are good to go. You can draw up a plan yourself, get it documented in a suitable format by someone with the skills to do so, and get it approved and built.

Architecture house design