What I love about being an architect is that you begin with words. It’s words from the client, yourself. It’s words in your own head. And when it’s finished, it’s a built object that people live in. It’s a fantastic generation. From idea to occupation.
Designing for light, air and living
We focus on thermal stability, light penetration, cross-ventilation. This room is a great example. This room we’re standing in is on the south side, so traditionally it would be very dark.
Because of the skylight up there, it’s getting sunlight. So it’s very much contra to what you would have in a southern-facing room. And then on top of that, you’ve got the glass block wall, which lets the light from this room into that corridor. So you don’t need to turn lights on.
In this instance, what we were trying to do was focus on making sure that the emphasis for the house was to the living areas. That required a whole series of fairly special shapes and movements in the house.
So there are two lantern lights. The one on the right-hand side from the street has the master suite in it. The one on the left-hand side from the street is purely a lantern light with cross-ventilation. And both of those elements focus the house to the street, to the living area, to the front door.
A home you can feel
Early in my career, one of my clients said to me, I can walk into a home, and I can tell that it’s architect-designed, but I don’t know why. Really, what a person should do when they first walk in, is they should feel it. If it feels right, then start looking at things like: where does the sun come from, what are the outlooks? And so on. This home, which is a one-of-a-kind, has so many features that are subtle but obvious once they’re pointed out to you.
For people, they’re really more interested in the value, the artistic value of the place. Does it actually portray how they see themselves? This house will say a lot about that.
