Designing Home - Adventures in Architecture!

I know, intense. You're probably now wondering whether or not I've lost it. Well, perhaps. You see, I took a deep dive, like a real deep dive into architecture when I began. You see, it's in my nature. The way I approach most things in life before I get started is based on a need to understand the origin. So, here is the origin story for the design of our new home.

Do you know what this image is? It's a Leonardo DaVinci sketch from 1490 entitled, The Vitruvian Man. This image has been discussed and used in many different applications, why it's important to me is that it was utilized by Thomas Jefferson in the designing of Monticello. You see, he believed that it depicted the perfect human proportions and therefore exactly the amount of space one person would take up depending on the task at hand. For instance, depending on your purpose (i.e. cooking, reading, dining, sleeping...you get the picture) your body needs a certain amount of space - now multiply that by the number of people in each space at a time and you're starting to sketch out the room sizes, furniture placement, etc. for every purpose within your home.

Have you ever walked into a very large undefined space and felt overwhelmed, or a small room and felt cramped? Typically, its a poor use of space for the purpose at hand.

If I haven't lost you yet, great! Perhaps you're ready for real deep dive part.

What does Vitruvian mean?

I'm so glad you asked!

[I told you there would be levity!]

The name is derived from an Ancient Roman, a pretty prominent Roman to be exact - Vitruvius. He lived somewhere between 80 - 15 BC. Much like the Ancient Greeks of his day, he is widely considered to be the Father of Architecture. So...going to the library and looking for his original works (which had to be ordered) seemed like the right idea to me as I began to plan out my living spaces. It also left me wishing that I had learned Latin in High School. Overkill?! Nah - who doesn't attempt to decode Latin while simultaneously reading the English translation for a 2,000 year old text to figure out where the kitchen sink should go?! Clearly the same process utilized by the ever popular DIY home shows on HGTV - they must leave that part out from filming.

However - I learned some amazing things! Before the modern conveniences of indoor heating and cooling, some very basic building principles were passed down from generation to generation and adopted by many different cultures all over the world, including the more commonly used term - feng shui.

Essentially, doors matter, windows matter, gathering space and work room space placement matters, geo-positioning matters - it all matters! Have you ever gone into a very old home and just felt incredibly comfortable...walked into a living room and just felt the desire to pick up a book or sit by a fireplace? It's because these principles matter.

Here are some basic takeaways:

1. If possible, your main entryway should face East (2nd best option - Northeast). As Vitruvius and the Ancient Chinese would say, as the sun rises in the East the light fills the entryway of your home - I like to think of it as the first guest of the day. [Did you know that many churches were built this way as well?] In our home, we placed our breakfast/coffee nook, office, piano room and foyer and large porch on the front of the house (facing East) and it is definitely where we land in those early mornings as we watch the sun coming up over the hill in front of our home. Aside from the actual physical design of the space, their purpose is dictated by the sun and our positioning to it.

2. Depending on your agricultural zone, the placement of trees is just as important. As we established early on, we live in the snowbelt of Western New York. So, we have lots oak, ash and maple trees. Unfortunately the ash tree blight wiped out all of our ash trees and once we cleared our land, we were left with a handful of maples - but they do the job! The trick is to have leafy trees flanking the southern side of your home - in the summer the shade from those leaves will prevent the sun from beating down on your home and keep you cool. Conversely, in the winter, when the leaves fall, the sunlight will stream through those trees to provide some solar gain to assist in keeping your home warm.

3. Did you know that unless there is a storm, the wind comes out of the west? I mean - in truth, I did not. It's something I never paid attention to. However, we built a house without air conditioning and we needed to make sure that we took advantage of those western breezes to keep us cool - good news, it actually works! Remember when I said that windows matter? Well, just like Thomas Jefferson did with Monticello, we have a symmetrical house and for every window on the western side, there is a window on the eastern side to build a strong cross-breeze and they are spaced evenly to keep the air flowing. Nothing beats a cool breeze on an otherwise hot summer night and going to sleep/waking up to the sounds of nature!

There are so many more, but those for me were the biggest takeaways at this phase. It helped me figure out room placement and the type of building lot we would be looking for so we could position it just right!

Whew...this might be the most concise version of this story that I have ever told.

Seems like a good place to stop for now. Since you've already met Sam, our builder, the next process was one in which we created a basic layout with 8,356 revisions - just kidding, but there were a lot...Sam's a patient man.

Next up - putting plans on paper!