In November of 2014 I wrote about the Not so Big Apartment and of Gary Chang’s clever Swiss army knife style apartment that transforms into 24 different spaces. I admired the inventiveness of Cheng’s project and the notion of living well in a small setting.
The topic of size comes up a lot at architectural conferences. The issue is an important one for obvious reasons – bigger homes require more energy to heat and cool and more energy goes into the construction materials. Clients however aren’t always so interested in the notion of doing with less. That’s not surprising in the US, home to the super-sized Big Mac and it’s cousin the McMansion.
At HEDS we think big, from the perspective of living well, is beside the point –size has very little to do with the qualities that foster a sense of well-being and happiness. Size is what builders promote in the absence of good design. This is size over substance thinking – size is a false prize.
We share our clients’ goal that our designs should contribute to their happiness and well-being. In pursuit of their happiness, we promote more substantive qualities such as homes that bring richness through CLEVER ideas. Other qualities we pursue in our designs: FUN, COMMUNITY at all levels (between siblings, within the family, with neighbors and the larger community), a connection with NATURE, and last but not least, COOL.
In pursuit of COOL: The Exbury Egg by Pad Studio, Spud Group and Stephen Turner.
In pursuit of FUN and COMMUNITY. This kids room has a shared loft. An art wall exhibits the children’s masks. A window between the children’s rooms fosters community between siblings. When small these children held hands between the window and have grown up to be close friends. Woolen Mills House by HEDS.
In Pursuit of Nature: A captured outdoor space brings nature into the daily living for this home’s occupants. The space is used for sitting and dining during the spring, summer and fall. Dogtrot House by HEDS. Photo by Prakash Patel.
The advent of heating and cooling systems coupled with improvements in the building envelope and cheap energy have led to the homogenization of homebuilding. Compare the floor plan of a developer home in Vermont to one in Arizona. Apart from a little white cladding here and stucco there, the blueprints are the same. I grew up in a 1770’s home in Vermont that was four rooms over four (more volume to surface area). The traditional home in Virginia (where I now reside, apparently I can only live in states that start with “V”) is two over two (more surface area to volume). The former built to heat, the latter to breathe. Vermont has 6006 heating degree days (measurement that reflects the demand for energy needed to heat a building), Virginia has half that number, 3304. Vermont has 747 cooling degree days while VA has 1422 (twice as many). Without air conditioning, modern heating, homes from the 18th century were adapted to conserve or reject heat — a strategy seen in nature and one which, when applied to the building industry, has low first costs. This is a strategy the Developer-Builder can easily adopt. It’s called Regionalism.
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