What makes us different
If you are considering hiring an architect to design a new home we would like to help. Rather than being a sideline as it is in most architecture offices, the design of new houses and the renovation of older ones has been our principal business for about 40 years.
We can organize the process for you, starting with advice about which piece of land to buy, where to put your house on a property. In designing your building we merge our design skills with knowledge that only you can have about what kind of a home will work for you. This results in a house that is a reflection of you, but will make sense in its environment and will retain its value. We always model the building in 3D and show you how it will really look with animated walk-throughs and renderings as well as the more traditional 2D drawings.
Recently, Lucia and I decided to stop running an office that would provide the entire process from design through construction observation. Now, our office has returned to our house and for the services after the original design and design development we will send you to other providers—in most cases the project architects that worked for us for years. Because our overhead is now lower, we have actually been able to lower our billing rate with this smaller office.
We get paid for our creativity, but also for absorbing hassles, so you can enjoy the excitement of building a new home in a beautiful place.
House Gallery
Here is a gallery of homes that we have done in recent years. Each house is a result of a particular set of circumstances created by the site, the client’s program and budget and just as importantly, our clients dreams. While the stylistic response varies, we think all these houses are a success for their clients and for their environment. We’d like to do one for you.
I have been designing houses of all sizes since the late 1960’s but the house type I find most satisfying and challenging is the good small house. Here on the coast of Maine the demand has increased steadily for the little and efficient home that takes advantage of sun, site and design to reward people with modest housing needs.We have selected 20 designs that have grown out of my experience of giving clients a sense of place and light and fun. These house designs vary in size from 636 square feet to close to 2,000 square feet of heated floor area. Each was designed for a specific client with individual programs but you can be modify any of them to suit your specific needs. You can see these house plans on our Web site here.
In most cases, we no longer are retailing Lucia’s Little House plans, but you can buy them on the web at architecturalhouseplans.com.
MAINE HOME +DESIGN
The Sun and the Site
Edited by Rebecca Falzano
May 2010
In his book The Perfect House, Witold Rybcynski observes: “Buildings reveal themselves slowly; they must be seen at different times of day and under different conditions, in sunlight and darkness, in fog and rain. Houses particularly should be appreciated in small doses. For days on end you may be unaware of your surroundings, then one day you stop what you are doing, look around, and indescribably but unmistakably you feel that everything, including yourself, is in the right place. That is the experience of architecture.
Robert Knight of Knight Associates approaches architecture in this way; in his early discussions with clients, he tries to view the house that is imbedded in their memories as “home,” believing that will form the basis of a building that feels right for them.