When designing a home, it is important to ask a lot of questions to figure out the goals of the new project. Why do you want to expand that room, how do you use this area, and even, what kind of car do you drive? Understanding the specific ways things are happening and how the client wants them to happen is at the heart of good design. If you have ever thought about it, you probably realize that a house is the most complicated machine you will ever own. A home has water vapor moving through walls, mechanical systems moving air, vents exhausting fumes and humidity, walls resisting wind, roofs shedding water, and the list goes on. Buildings are complicated for sure, just like the lives they facilitate are complicated.
So when approaching a renovation or addition project it is important to know the client’s values. In order to best design the right solution for them you have to know the goals, problems, challenges, and budget. This is the work that we do as architects, we boil down complicated problems into easy-to-digest decisions. Our work in the early phases is an act of uncovering the story. We develop a narrative of spaces and shapes working with your budget in mind. These parts are woven together into a built form that can be used to create the physical space.
As architects, we help reduce stress and unknowns through our shared experiences and work to enhance livability through design solutions. It is not only our job to understand you but to be able to translate your goals, lifestyle, and hopes into a physical space that will flourish with you. This project renovation in Fluvanna County would not have been possible without the contracting skills of M3 inc.Teamwork withtrusted partners is another key to a successful project.
Over the last year of uncertainty, it has been difficult to figure out what products have changed, what is available, and what the “right” answers are for our clients. As a firm, we have always worked hard to stay informed about changing patterns, products, and best practices in the field and that is hard to do working remote. Reading articles and studying text can only teach so much, so we had to ask ourselves, what could we do to stay on top of things in order to best serve our clients? We started hosting online education sessions each month, inviting product experts to help educate us and others in the industry. We worked at finding a range of sessions that not only benefited our own learning, but a community we built online of industry professionals. One of our “Golden Product Rep” that helped us with a virtual seminar is Steve Norris with American Bath Group. He has a wide range of plumbing products, many that we use in our projects, and delivered some excellent information for us to consider during the design process.
Today, Steve is with us live and in-person – outside of our office with a trailer display of his products. This gives us a chance to put our hands on things, see the differences, and understand how to guide our clients better through the selection process. We have also invited some industry colleagues to join us because we are better as a team than we are working in a silo. During our time spent with the American Bath Group, we had the privilege to learn about cutting-edge materials and products that are being utilized in residential and commercial bathrooms. By far one of the coolest advancements we viewed was shatter-resistant tempered glass.
This demonstration was conducted by our very own interior designer a more professional example of this technology can be viewed here. We were asked to press down on the glass as hard as we could and upon breaking the glass stayed a solid, laminated in place. This technology will not only save your bathroom from disaster but has the possibility to save lives.
Overall we were incredibly thankful that American Bath Group took the time to show us all of the newest material advancements and allow us to not only learn but to grow as a team.
