Good design must have an organizing concept. But even with a good concept, a house can have all the right finishes, the best materials, the finest appliances, everything can be as perfect as it can be-and yet, the house still doesn’t feel right. Why doesn’t it feel like home?

All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.”-Philip Johnson     

    If you asked me to give you a short answer to the question, “What will make a house be my perfect house?” I would have to say this: Everything should just seem to be in the right place. Unfortunately, the word “seem” is pretty vague. So it follows that the characteristics that will create Your Perfect House are subjective, and the concepts are sometimes difficult to grasp. These are the immeasurable, unquantifiable aspects of architectural design.

    These issues relate to emotions and to other sorts of perceptions that can’t be described in feet and inches. It’s a little difficult to get your arms around the concepts we’re going to talk about, which may be the reason many books about designing homes do not even attempt to discuss them. But they are vital for you to be aware of so you can be a full partner with your architect in the design of Your Perfect House. I’ll elaborate upon them in future posts. But for now, here are a few key concepts that take a house beyond simple shelter and elevate it to the status of “home.” 

A Home Needs Sequential Progressions-Our Minds Seek Order

    We don’t like to go from silence directly to eardrum-shattering noise. We can’t stand turning on a bright light when our eyes have adjusted to the darkness. There has to be a gradual transition, a segue from one thing to another. It’s the same when we enter a house. We are most comfortable if the journey from the public spaces outside the front door progresses through a thoughtfully designed sequence of increasingly more private spaces, eventually ending at the most private spaces.  

Don’t Design a Building, Design Spaces

    Architects don’t simply design houses. We design spaces. The house is merely the enclosure and definition of those spaces, both inside and outside the house. We think in terms of spaces more than objects.

    When architects design houses, they are actually creating spaces within those houses that will work for the people who will be living in them. This is what a good architect is trained to understand. This is what he should have a sixth sense about. What will the spaces feel like? What size is right? What shape and character is best?

 Control the Scale-Keep It Human

    A room is a stage for human activity. Rooms become important because of what happens within their boundaries. Because the rooms in a house are meant to contain human activities, they should necessarily be sized to match the intended use and therefore always maintain a human scale.

    Architects always want to create spaces that match the function for the users. Let’s say that Joe down the street has a dining room that’s 14 by 16 feet. Fred wants to build a house that will be “even better” than Joe’s. Fred might say, “Hey, I don’t have to have a 14-by-16-foot dining room. I can afford a room that’s 20 by 24.” After all, isn’t bigger better? Not always, I say. An architect can help you discover the proper size and proportion a room should have to suit the function and the particular users of that room, just the same way a suit of clothes should fit the wearer perfectly or the clothing will feel awkward and wrong.

    Making a house a home is a matter of designing the spaces we live in and not simply erecting a building that will keep the water out and the heat inside. It’s about understanding scale, transitions, progressions, order, and aesthetics.

Bill Hirsch

www.williamhirsch.com

www.designingyourperfecthouse.com

    Garage doors are often one of the ugliest features on the exterior of a house. There are now quite a few “carriage house” type doors to choose from that look much better than the traditional flat or raised panel doors. But those special doors come at a significant cost increase. There are other solutions you might want to consider.

    Garage doors are often an unsightly feature simply because of their scale. We human beings tend to prefer objects that are an appropriate size or scale to our own size. The doors and windows of your house will be most appealing when they are size-appropriate to the people who will occupy the house. They will “express” an interaction with other people. On a subconscious level, we can emotionally connect with architectural features like that. Garage doors must, by their very nature, be sized and scaled to the automobiles that must pass through them. Garage doors end up being the largest doors on your house. We find them unattractive for that very reason.

    Being true to his sardonic nature, Frank Lloyd Wright once said, “Doctors can bury their mistakes. Architects can only plant vines.” It’s a clever line, but vines can serve a greater purpose for architects than simply camouflaging errors. They can be useful elements that can be integrated into the architecture. Here is an example of vines used to soften the visual impact of three, blank garage doors in an otherwise featureless portion of a house.

Pergola with Vines above Garage Doors

    Green roofs are roofs that have grass of other plant materials growing right on top of them. The theory is that the roof will stay cooler and reflect less heat back into the atmosphere.

    There was an interesting article in the Raleigh News and Observer today. It was about how the local Universities are going “green” in an effort to attract students. They discussed some of the green projects, especially the green roof at Duke University Hospital.

Green Roof at Duke University

     Photo by Tim Pennigar

    I was particularly struck by these last few paragraphs of the story that note that these green roofs have an emotional benefit. Here’s what they said:

“The roof is receiving positive reviews.

Beth Yoder of Durham, a physical therapist at the hospital, said she notices the green roof as she helps patients walk down hallways. One patient joked that it was the doctors’ baseball diamond.

‘I never even thought about the psychological impact of green roofs in a hospital setting,’ Yoder said. ‘It’s very uplifting. It makes me feel almost more alive and have a more positive outlook.’ ”

I believe that our buildings, and particularly our houses, have a profound and often unappreciated impact on us emotionally. Our buildings can either promote or damage our sense of well-being. It’s an issue I feel we need to pay more attention to than we currently do. Wouldn’t you like you house to be uplifting?

Bill Hirsch

www.designingyourperfecthouse.com

www.williamhirsch.com