Residential Wall Design Part 2: Wall Functional Considerations: As we mentioned in the previous blog on Wall Aesthetics, in addition to looking good, the walls of your house need to perform three very important functions; structural, thermal protection and moisture protection. We will focus on the second two, as they are both at the core of how modern residential building science is improving home construction. Framed walls ready for insulation. Background: The American Society of Heating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHAE) was founded in 1894, and the American Society of Refrigerating Eng ..read more

Companion video to our recent blog post on typical American home styles ..read more

Residential Wall Design Part 1: Aesthetics The walls of your new house are a very complex system. They provide structural support for your floors and roof, they keep water out and conditioned air in. Plus they need to look good too! There are other functions, but these four primary roles are: aesthetics, structure, moisture protection and air-tightness. We'll discuss all four of these in a two-part post. In part one we're going to focus only on that first function, aesthetics. Aesthetics is something we all care about because the visual appearance of our home is a big part of how we experience ..read more

What style is my house? A common question among homeowners wishing to better understand the design of their home. It seems simple enough, but with most things, the more you begin to learn the more complex such a simple question can become. The go-to book in this category is “The Field Guide to American Houses” by Virginia and Lee McAlester. The authors break down the style of American homes into six major categories, each with a handful of sub categories, resulting in approximately 39 identifiable styles of American Homes. We’ll take a more in-depth look at six of these categories commonly fou ..read more

A new YouTube video highlighting our Schematic Design process. Schematic Design, or Preliminary Design, is the first major design step when undertaking a home renovation, addition or new construction project. It's a fun and exciting time of the project and is usually the first time your ideas will be translated into plans, sections, elevations and 3d views ..read more

Throughout your home renovation project your architect should be able to provide you with 3D floor plans and other 3D images of the design. These are incredibly helpful for all involved, especially at the preliminary design stage. However, to receive permits and to have your project built, you will need a comprehensive set of construction documents.  There is a lot of information that needs to be conveyed and the bulk of this information gets conveyed in plans, sections and elevations. These are 2d drawings that are packed with information, and many people have difficulty understanding ho ..read more

Throughout your home renovation project your architect should be able to provide you with 3D floor plans and other 3D images of the design. These are incredibly helpful for all involved, especially at the preliminary design stage. However, to receive permits and to have your project built, you will need a comprehensive set of construction documents.  There is a lot of information that needs to be conveyed and the bulk of this information gets conveyed in plans, sections and elevations. These are 2d drawings that are packed with information, and many people have difficulty understanding ho ..read more

A new master bedroom suite is a common requirement for homeowners looking to build an addition to their homes. We discussed a few general concepts in our previous blog post about the proper size for a master bedroom. We recently visited a completed project with a bedroom like one shown below. This design gave the client a comfortable 15’-6” x 12’ bedroom space with a long, open walk-in closet behind the bed. This is one of our favorite closet designs because the open bed wall makes the room feel bigger and allows more light into the room. We don’t have to close off an entire section of the bed ..read more

How much space do I need for my new master bedroom? This is a common question for homeowners building a new addition. Like everything else, it depends and there are lots of options. You can begin to identify the correct size for your space by considering how you will be using it. Do you have a king bed? Do you want a sitting area in the bedroom? Do you want a walk-in closet? Large master bedroom with walk-in closet behind the bed wall and space for a sitting area in the lower left corner The images in this post show a few different master bedroom designs we have recently presented to som ..read more

This is part five of a series of posts that will attempt to tell the story of one project from beginning to end, from concept to completion. It is based on a typical home renovation project in Montgomery County Maryland, but many of the issues convey to most jurisdictions throughout the United States. Part 1: Inception Part 2: An Actionable Plan Part 3: Site Assessment Part 4: Schematic Design Part 4B: Design Changes Design Development Design Development is a refining phase which takes us from Schematic Design to the beginning of Construction Documents. During this process the design becomes m ..read more