Our Architect and the First Design
Posted on | August 24, 2008 |
We’re a big fan of modern architecture. One of my clients is Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects. We developed and maintain their websites, and I am always in love with what they do, their design-centric process and the thought they put into every project. When we first looked over the lot, Talbot Sweetapple came out to the site and reviewed it with us and recommended that we buy it. He also reviewed the firm’s pricing structure. And despite the fact that we absolutely adore their homes, it was simply beyond our means in terms of cost.
In an interesting twist of fate, one of my best friends from high school happens to be married to Talbot’s sister Monica Sweetapple. And interestingly, Monica is also a stellar architect. She works, by day, for the federal government on cool projects like passive solar RCMP detachment buildings. And by night, she works on cool home designs, mostly for friends and acquaintances. We’ve always talked about asking Monica to design either a house or maybe an addition for us. When we asked, she and her husband Greg visited the lot, explored the property and surroundings (including the impressive beach) and accepted. We’re super stoked to have Monica on our project.
External mockups
This is the first design Monica prepared for us, just based on our original discussions. One of the key features of this lot is that directly across the road, behind the houses, is a beautiful lake. If we get the house up high enough in the design of the house, we should be able to see the lake from the second or third floor. This is a big part of what sold us on the lot.
So, it’s understandable that Monica designed this house as a tower with 4 stories. We loved it at first, but as we went through the layout and started thinking more and more about it, it just didn’t seem quite right.
Too tall, and too narrow. It’s a great first step though and helped to inform the next few layouts we saw.
Floor Plans
Tags: architect > architecture > mackay-lyons > mockups > passive solar > sweetapple
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2 Responses to “Our Architect and the First Design”
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August 28th, 2008 @ 8:38 am
I feel I need to elaborate on the fees by MLS Architects. Although their fees may seem high they are worth it! Most of the homes by this firm have international acclaim and fame. Having an Architect design your home usually adds 10% of value to the home, having an intenationally successfull award winning firm like MLS design your home may add 50% or more to the value of the home. So in summary, the investment pays off! But I certainly understand that coming up with the initial investment is difficult.
August 28th, 2008 @ 8:48 am
Oh–I in no way see their prices as out of line, they’re just too high for us.