Architecture is an expression of the values, goals and aspirations of individuals in a society. Unfortunately the majority of homes built today are mass-produced and designed around a market driven building program that reflects the trends of corporate home builders and has little to do with the individual and more to do with profit. Gated communities and subdivisions across America are popping up with standard home designs, rotated to orient to the street with total disregard to the region’s climate, solar orientation, history and indigenous building technology. The resultant expression of this construction is void of the unique qualities of a region and contributes to the generic, banal qualities of many American suburbs. Owners are forced to adapt to the building instead of the building adapting to the owner.
Professionally designed homes offer individuals the opportunity to focus the design around their lifestyle, orient the building to maximize the existing features of their site and utilize local building traditions that contribute to the regional expression of the community. The success of a custom home design and subsequent expression can be traced back to the clarity and depth of the first steps of custom home design; the building program and site analysis.
Quality programming data is easily obtained with a concentrated evaluation of one’s needs with a qualified design professional. At the core of all building programs is a list of functions that satisfy the owners needs, develops budgets, schedules and provides design professionals a sense for the relationships between the spaces, lifestyle patterns and ideological objectives of the owner. It is these relationships and objectives that are the seeds which sprout the design of all custom homes and provide a solid foundation to begin a through site analysis.
A definitive site analysis is much more elusive and requires a designer to investigate the unique technology, culture, and history of a region and mesh that information with the homeowners building program. Views, solar orientation, wind data, vegetation and topography can be easily gathered and documented by a qualified land surveyor. Understanding and implementing this data in the design of a home is paramount to its success.
Only through a thorough study of the program and site with a design professional can a home be designed and constructed to fit into its environment. By recognizing that all building strategies and technologies come with inherent qualities and limitations, designers can guide homeowners to solutions that adapt to their lifestyle and are regionally expressive.