Emerging ideas in Floor Plans

My last few posts (from a few months ago- sorry!) focused mostly on the exterior trends and what was being done wrong and what could be done instead. I've spent very little time so far talking about plans or layouts for a couple of reasons. For one, plans are a very personal and subjective aspect of house design, and if you ask a dozen people what rooms they want in their house, you'll get a dozen different answers. For another, plans will vary quite a bit as you travel across the country, and what is popular or acceptable in one region may not be the case in another, making predications and recommendations difficult.

However, we are seeing some things recently that are causing people to change what they are looking for in a home. First off, I think that most people are changing their lifestyles slightly; in other words, rethinking how they use the spaces in their homes. Secondly, either because of the economy or due to concerns over ecological responsibility (or both), the trends seems to be pointing towards smaller homes. Most of the battle for the smaller home is fought on the first floor, since that is considerably more expensive area to build than the 2nd floor (with a "slab on grade" house, as most Texas homes are). Unfortunately, the trend for smaller is also fighting with the trend to place more and more of the entertaining spaces downstairs.

Regardless, I have designed several homes this year with some different philosophies in their layout, and while I'd hesitate to call it a "trend", at this point, it probably merits at least a report.

1) Separation of Formal and Informal spaces:

Not very long ago, the trend was that a larger home had to have a formal living room and a family room, as well as a formal dining room and a casual dining room (or 'breakfast nook'). People bought very nice furniture to put in the formal spaces and more relaxed pieces for the informal ones.

Recently, people have begun to realize that, for the most part, these formal spaces were used very infrequently and took on a sort of "home museum" feel to them, being mostly wasted space except for special occasions. The formal living room has all but disappeared in most of the houses I design, and I am seeing the Formal Dining start to follow suit. Part of this is also due to the trend of furniture beginning to blur the line between casual and formal. 'Distressed' pieces are a very common item now and fit well in either formal or casual environments.

In our designs, it is very common now to oversize the family room and have the house as a 'single living area' home. Often we will vault these spaces and let the line between formal and casual blur in the home as well. The fact is, people spend their time in the family room, and they want it to be a nice, large, appealing space.

We have also experimented with eliminated the formal dining room in some of our designs. One way to do this is to place a very large single dining area (or 'semi-formal' dining) that opens up to (or is actually part of) the family room. Part of what also makes people more comfortable with this concept is to have a kitchen with an island large enough to be considered and 'eat-in' kitchen.

2) The Entertaining Spaces

Another common feature of a home was that it had to have a space that could be used as a home theater, as well as a separate 'Game Room' whose sole purposed seemed to be to house a pool table that rarely got used. These rooms were almost always placed on the 2nd floor of the home and, as the formal spaces of previous designs, became parts of the home rarely visited.

We have begun doing 2 things in rethinking these spaces. One is to join these individual rooms into a single space. Picture either an 'L' or 'T' shaped room with the large flat screen TV or projection screen being against the wall of the appendage space. This allows for furniture to be placed so that the same space can hold typical game room equipment (pool table, poker table, shuffleboard, etc) and yet also have a large sofa or 2 separating these spaces. Functionally, the room can now fit a variety of activities simultaneously.

The other aspect is that, wherever possible, our designs are now placing these spaces downstairs instead of up. While this can be a challenge and is not always possible on smaller homes, the result is a space that become much more usable on a day to day basis for the adults.

3) Reducing where possible

As I said earlier, while some of these spaces are moving downstairs, the overall trend is that these homes are getting smaller overall, and that has to happen on the ground floor for it to be a significant financial savings. Eliminating formal spaces is one way, but that area is then usually given to increasing the size of the family or semi formal dining, or towards moving entertaining spaces downstairs. There are some possibilities in reducing size though.

Grand staircases at the entryway make for dramatic foyers. They also are expensive and take a lot of square footage to do. One way to save space is to move away from the stair hall at the foyer and have a less grand, more functional staircase close to the kitchen. In circumstances where the entertaining spaces are mostly downstairs anyways, a grand staircase makes less sense from a practical standpoint as well.

Master baths are a space that have also grown over the years. Some people have used size instead of something well laid out to impress. In several houses lately, I have designed much smaller bathrooms. One way to get around the reduced size is to spatially separate the sinks from the bathing and shower area. The bathing area can then take on the aspect of being it's own "spa retreat" instead of simply slapping a tub in the center of the master bath or in front of the only window. As the tub moves into it's own space, it's important for the sink area to still maintain as much natural light as possible, so why not leave a smaller bench or window seat in front of the window where the tub used to be?

Master closets can get notoriously large, and one of the things that people will frown upon if it's too small. One solution that we came up with was to place a cedar lined closet on the 2nd floor above the master closet, with a dumb waiter for moving winter/ summer clothes back and forth. This allowed us to put a much smaller closet downstairs and yet still have a great deal of clothes storage.

Utility rooms also have grown in size, and that trend seems to be reversing. Placing the 2nd refrigerator (or freezer) in another location allows the room to get smaller. We have also begun placing smaller, secondary utility rooms upstairs (just big enough for a washer dryer and a cabinet or 2) and the main laundry room in most of our current design now has access to the Master Closet directly for convenience.

These are some of the innovations that I have come up with over the past couple of years in designing homes for my clients. While not all of the ideas will appeal to everyone or make sense for every living situation, they may help to spark some new ideas for you or perhaps begin to rethink how you want to live in your next home.

Until my next post!

Home Exterior DO's and DON'T's, part 2

I want to spend some time in this posting looking specifically at DETAILS. One of the problems, I think, with a lot of home construction is that builders and designers take an awful lot of liberty in interpretation of the details in a home. In a creative search, it seems more and more decoration is added to the exterior to add interest and excitement. I'll try and use less wording in this post and more pictures to illustrate my point, because a picture is worth 1000 words, right?

I'll start once again with examples of what not to do:

In the above example, the first thing you notice is the extreme contrast in the brick and stone colors, which over emphasizes these details. All the windows are framed in a orange-red brick and there is some brick "X"  cross bands at various levels across the house. A horizontal band can serve to accent the structure, or to visually separate overly tall element of the house. Here, it's splatter whimsically across the entire facade without any real reasoning behind it. Also, the "X" patterns itself has become an all too familiar detail in recent building trends.

Here is another strongly contrasting exterior in terms of material selection. You see a very typical soldier course of brick running down the "rake" (edge) of the gable parallel to the roof, which is a detail that has become commonplace to the point of absurdity. The main reason I chose this image, however, is the brick "trident" in the gable. The original inspiration for a design such as this goes back to medieval architecture, in which houses were constructed of very heavy, rough hewn timber; usually with masonry, plaster (or even mud) infill. Historically inspired homes are, of course, constructed of more modern building techniques, yet do their best to emulate the details so the house has the appearance of something even older (and thus more timeless). However, this full masonry detail is so far removed for the original detail in terms of material, proportions, color (and obviously function) that it becomes nothing more than irrelevant decoration.  

There is less to criticize here in this example. Certainly a more consistent tone in terms of color makes this one of the more subdued examples. On the positive side, there are some nice cast stone accents at the entry and at the window surrounds. There is a bit of stylistic mixing, but overall the design flows together in a mostly neutral way.

I chose this example specifically for the overuse of the diamond cast stone accent in the banding. As an accent piece in some of the upper gables, it works fine. However, as a band, it becomes overdone and repetitive. If a band was needed, a more simple cast stone element would have sufficed. 

A fairly dark colored rough stone veneer on this house (while not my personal favorite) is not so much the issue here, as it was to add the light colored contrasting stonework to the window and openings. Not only is this distracting in terms of its color, but the undulating lines at the edges also draw the eye  to this detail. It might have worked if it was an isolated condition, but here the same detail is given to every window and opening across the entire house. Some other overused and common details to note: the "X" banding at the top of the corner turret, and the solider course of brick running up the gable rake.

I'm contrasting the images above (taken from newer home developments in the Dallas Fort Worth area) with the images below of (mostly) older homes from historic districts. Here are examples of what to do:

This house also a fairly dark colored stone veneer exterior, and there is a mixing of brick and stone on some of the wall surfaces and the surrounds. Note however, how the colors actually compliment each other in this example instead of contrasting and competing for importance. Note the clean edge of the gable rake, and the very simple detailing at the gable top. The shutters here are actually functional as well as decorative elements, and the entry surround is well proportioned in the main gable, and has a real sculptural, 3 dimensional quality to it.

A house showing a correct use of the brick "X" pattern, also called "diaperwork". Because this is a fairly older (and worn) house, the diaperwork perhaps shows a bit more subtle in this image than when it was first built. Note that the cross pattern is not running at angles to the rest of the brick, and is VERY similar in it's coloring to the rest of the brick. It also covers most of the wall surface as opposed to being a horizontal "band". Some other details to note include the very nicely detailed chimneys, the subtle brick "lintel" over the windows, and the simple gable rake.

This house is actually a stucco exterior, which is a bit odd as it is showing a subtle diaperwork to the upper right. While it is a false interpretation in terms of materials, it IS correct in it's placement, form, proportions, scale and stylistic use. The house also works very well as it has a fairly harmonious color palette on the exterior and very simple massing. Note the decorative surrounds with scrolls at the entry and windows, which appear as cast or cut stone, but are in fact stucco accents.

An example of a house showing some very nice false half timber design on the 2nd floor. Note how the size of the wood members (painted gray in this image) vary, as well as the spacing to one another, and also how it projects slightly over the 1st floor with decorative brackets underneath. The masonry here is treated as infill, and is done in a herringbone pattern to help emphasis that fact. Finally, note how the wood and the brick are done mostly in the same plane, to each other.

This last example breaks a few rules of good design, but does it in such a way that the overall house still has a very pleasing feel to it. 

First, note the mix of several materials here (Stone, brick, wood, stucco, cast stone, even a metal roof on the side!), and how they do provide some dramatic contrast. However, they are all light and dark variations of  a similar neutral brown color. The materials are also ordered in a way that makes sense structurally (the visually heavier materials "supporting" the visually lighter materials). Note how close in tone the brick and the stucco are as well- they really don't even read as different materials!

We also see a similar undulating cast stone surround at some of the windows as a previous "what not to do" example above. Here, however, the detail is relegated to a single area, adding emphasis and interest to a specific feature, instead of being used everywhere. Also, because a large portion of the house is the light taupe color and matches the cast stone color closely, the eye isn't specifically drawn to the window detail only.

Finally, note the size, shape and design of the "half timber" elements- how their surface projects out from the surface below it, supported visually by brackets. Also (see enlarged image below) there is some very fine jointwork with dowels added to reinforce the illusion of the timbers being a structural element, as if they are actually mortised together. The egde of the gable in this case projects quite a bit forward, with a very large bargeboard, or fascia, along it's rake.

Anyway, I hope that helps provide some good examples and maybe a point for discussion. Please feel free to leave any comments or questions.

Home Exteriors- do's and don'ts, part I

In the first post, I gave some general rules of thumb about designing a home. In the next few posts, I will get more specific and provide some examples. 

Let's start by comparing the images below:

Here are some points to note about this design that, as a general rule of thumb, should be avoided:

• Unbalanced massing- note how the left side has a much greater height than the right side. This almost seems as if two completely unrelated structures were joined together, and places ALL of the emphasis on the front and almost ignores the back. A 1 story turret is added to the far right to help bring some balance back, but the roofline is so dramatic, it does not adequately compensate.
• Decoration purely for embellishment- Decorative elements in and of themselves are not bad, if they are used within certain guidelines. However, if a design needs decoration to keep from being too plain, then the design is probably lacking architecturally to begin with (I'll talk about this more in a future blog) . Note specifically here the brick arches over some of the windows, the brick herringbone band at the entry turret.
• Brick and stone at the entry- Stone and brick mixtures have become an key identifying feature to most of todays homes. For that reason alone, I try and avoid it. Historically, rough stone was a less desirable material. Today, it's more expensive than brick and seen as an "upgrade", but more than likely, it's done just because everyone else is doing it. Strong contrasting colors, such as those used here, force the eye to separate parts of the house visually. This can be used for emphasis on the right parts (such as focusing on the entryway), but here it seems more random, simply to add interest.
• Poorly proportioned, inexpensive windows- The windows here, particularly the grouping of 3 at the center of the picture, are far too narrow, both for the side of wall they are in, as well as in relation to how tall they are. Secondly, many builders opt to go with less expensive vinyl windows instead of the upgraded wood or clad wood windows, regardless of the price of the house. Most people don't know any better because they are so widespread.

Let's now compare the house above with the one below. I specifically chose a turreted entry on a corner lot for comparison's sake. Obviously, there is a much better use of landscaping here, but let's not let that obscure the architectural differences. 



In contrast to the list above, here are some things that were done better in this design (and could have been applied to the previous design as well):

• More balanced massing- Note the roof line in this example as compared to the earlier one. There is a high and a low plate, but the two integrate in such as way as to be a single design as opposed to pieces thrown together.         
• Simple detailing- This design does not rely on fancy masonry patterns to capture the eye and bring attention to it. A simple band helps delineates the 1st and 2nd stories, there is some decorative metal work on the upper windows. The windows have simple, yet elegant cast stone surrounds which blend in well with the overall material of the house.           
• Uniform materials- While that majority of this design is rough stone (not an inexpensive option for the entire house) I want you to see that the house does not rely on sharp color contrasts or a mixing of materials to capture the eye. It's more subtle, elegant, and will probably be more timeless. Ever drive through a neighborhood and immediately know it was built in the mid 1980's? Why is that? Mostly because almost everyone used the same materials, forms and massing. More than likely, it will be just as easy to place the time period of the first design, probably in the not too distant future.               
• Better proportioned clad windows- Specifically looking at the windows to the left of the entry, we can see that they provide a good ratio of glass to the wall (a bit tight without looking forced maybe) and they have a good height to width proportion. Also, note the size of the window frame in relation to the previous design. Again, a subtle detail, but these windows visually appear more substantial and become an asset to the overall design.

I'll give some further examples in upcoming blogs. Please feel free to voice your thoughts below. I welcome your opinions, whether you agree or disagree with my assessments.

Also, I believe that credit for the second design illustrated here in this blog should be given to C. A. Nelson Architects (although I have not confirmed this as of yet.) Their website can be found at:

C. A Nelson Architects. This house, I believe, is the 5th one in the "French" section of their portfolio.

If you would like to see view of my work, please take a look at my company website at:

Heritage Design Studio.