Residential Design
Principles of Residential Design by Macdonald Architecture & Technology
Macdonald Architecture & Technology offers decades of experience in green & environmentally conscious residential design. Please see our Residential Gallery for more.
A real home is more than a house; it forms a place for living. It has qualities that endure in the hearts and spirits of those who live in it. It is a distillation of their ideal home, and as such, is an extension of the common spirit of its family. The design of a real home is a personal process that first takes place in the mind and heart of an architect's client, and must then also take place in the architect's mind and heart. This process gives form to private and individual ideas, visions, memories, and world-view through sharing and communication; finally, when built, the home communicates these to others through experience. This seemingly magical transformation from imagination into the firm reality of stone, wood, steel, plastics and glass imbues these materials with an almost tangible spirit.
What we call charm, what we perceive as beauty, what we respond to as warm and welcoming in a building designed as a dwelling place, is the result of this process - the transformation of perception and ideals into a common built reality to be shared with others; to delight them, to invite and interest them, and to receive them, just as we receive and welcome a guest into our heart.
Through the textures, colors, shapes, and forms, even through the working and craft of formation of building materials into a cohesive and understandable whole, the design and building process is shared among participants in this process. As a building, it is communicated to others, enlivened and expanded to encompass their perception, response, and understanding as well. As such, to design a home is to initiate relationships between people which continue to grow in the real world.
If a person or if a family of persons have found their place on the earth to live, should not the architectural entity formed for their shelter speak about their personal relationship to that place? Should it not sing of their past, their shared memory and culture, speak of their present, and hint of their future? And in so doing, should it not remain as the physical shared architectural sculpture of the joy and immeasurable beauty of their life?
In our present culture, we look to a home for many things beyond the basic qualities of shelter. We require heating, cooling, security and electronics. More than this, we should ensure that our homes provide energy to support our existence. The roofs of our homes can be designed to integrate solar collection sufficient, not only to power the home and serve the heating and domestic hot water needs, but also to help power the vehicles of those who live there.
Macdonald Architecture & Technology encourages client dialogue and client design interaction during the design process, so as to develop truly personal dwellings which also provide for physical needs. These houses respond to their location on earth and to the terrain and climate of their sites. In so doing, they become true homes.
What we call charm, what we perceive as beauty, what we respond to as warm and welcoming in a building designed as a dwelling place, is the result of this process - the transformation of perception and ideals into a common built reality to be shared with others; to delight them, to invite and interest them, and to receive them, just as we receive and welcome a guest into our heart.
Through the textures, colors, shapes, and forms, even through the working and craft of formation of building materials into a cohesive and understandable whole, the design and building process is shared among participants in this process. As a building, it is communicated to others, enlivened and expanded to encompass their perception, response, and understanding as well. As such, to design a home is to initiate relationships between people which continue to grow in the real world.
If a person or if a family of persons have found their place on the earth to live, should not the architectural entity formed for their shelter speak about their personal relationship to that place? Should it not sing of their past, their shared memory and culture, speak of their present, and hint of their future? And in so doing, should it not remain as the physical shared architectural sculpture of the joy and immeasurable beauty of their life?
In our present culture, we look to a home for many things beyond the basic qualities of shelter. We require heating, cooling, security and electronics. More than this, we should ensure that our homes provide energy to support our existence. The roofs of our homes can be designed to integrate solar collection sufficient, not only to power the home and serve the heating and domestic hot water needs, but also to help power the vehicles of those who live there.
Macdonald Architecture & Technology encourages client dialogue and client design interaction during the design process, so as to develop truly personal dwellings which also provide for physical needs. These houses respond to their location on earth and to the terrain and climate of their sites. In so doing, they become true homes.
Modified 2006-09-11