Lexington, KY - It was 1991, 20 years ago, when my wife and I last remodeled and built an addition for our home. We were upsizing. We had two children under 3, and we lived in the house while it was under construction. I don't recommend this.
Now the kids have moved away and we're downsizing, modifying a smaller place for our next home. It's a similar project (the budgets, corrected for inflation, are about the same), but this time we aren't living in it. The chaos that engulfed us in 1991 is now limited to the job site. Our absence from the work place is better for us and better for our builder.
Twenty years ago, all of our drawings were done by hand - pencil on mylar. The 1991 project was designed with 2D drawings and cardboard models, but in 1992 we switched to 3D computer modeling. So the current project benefited from 20 years of experience with modeling software - and scores of similar projects. My wife, the client, was far more involved this time around. This was partly because she no longer had babies grafted to her ankles, but mostly because she could really see what was going on when we explored the 3D model.
We started drawings before we even purchased the property. We spent an hour taking rough measurements of major spaces. Within a couple of days we had studied potential changes and felt confident enough to make an offer. After the purchase went through, we took thorough measurements and built a highly accurate computer model of the house.
The computer model was used to study proposed changes and to generate drawings. The process started with sketched ideas and was inspired by photos, dreams, places, colors. All of this was poured through the filter of my wife's vision, which resulted in a double strength brew (as it does with any client). I say this because the process is truly one of distillation. Ideas are tested, challenged, modified, and either rejected or clarified. The result is something far beyond what is initially imagined.
Now that construction is fully under way, what strikes me each time I visit the site is the enormous potential for the experience to become overwhelming. The reason it doesn't is that we spent four months designing and drawing, and prior to awarding the construction contract we discussed the work in detail with excellent builders. The drawings incorporated thousands of decisions made during our process of discovery, and now they are communicating those decisions to the builders.
Next Month: Going Green.
Graham Pohl is a partner in POHL ROSA POHL architecture+design.