OUR PROCESS

It began with the English periodical, Country Life, and those that eventually followed such as Architectural Digest and the shelter glossies that show up and disappear on a regular basis. There is no doubt though that Pinterest, Instagram, HGTV and the like have turned the architectural world on its ear. Who doesn’t have Clients arrive at a first meeting with sheaves of magazine images and pinterest accounts to share?

All good… up to a point.

What often results is an overwhelming sense of confusion. Does anyone walk into their closet or open the dresser, dump everything out on the floor and try to dress that way? The brilliant New York Times reporter, Ronda Kaysen, penned the most important report on this in a Sunday Times 13 November 2016 article titled “Design Inspiration Overload.” Every Client should read it and more importantly, Every Architect and Designer Should Read It!

The danger in relying too heavily on all of these pictures of other people’s houses is that your project runs the risk of literally looking like someone else lives there. How to avoid this? Setting a beautiful architectural stage upon which, within which, a person or family may lead their lives and getting out of the way is the trick. And only by anticipating how those lives may be led may one best design. We achieve this by Listening. A lot. And Looking. A lot. The smartest thing I can do is to keep quiet and let our Clients describe how they live now and hope to live in the future.

Frequent Client reviews on site and lots of sketching will get things off on the right foot. Face to face gatherings always trump telephone conference calls and since most of our Clients and keen to build in beautiful settings, travel figures into our efforts. Fortunately, I do like traveling to beautiful places and crafting beautiful things.

!? What is better than that ?!