I started the first floor plan. I will say, that as simple (and unoriginal) as the design is, I am becoming quite possessive of it. One early concern is that most of my designs are so complicated structurally that they would be very difficult to rip off, even with plans and pictures. This design should be so simple that any bonehead basement draftsmonkey could reproduce it. I wonder if I have stumbled on the whole problem with architects not relating to the masses... and why this is the inherent reason why I don't design these. It might be financial idiocy. I am troubled by this. It is concerning to me, but away I go!

Front Elevation

While our firm designs within many historic archetypes, the vast majority of our work is Shingle Style. I will using a style of Neo-New England vernacular for the genesis of my design thoughts; very simple and boxy to save money, analogous to a traditional cape or colonial, but putting a focus on architectural design and material quality rather than traditional fluff. I am using a starting budget of $225 per foot. My first thoughts are of a perfectly square bisected roof or four gables, allowing the rain water to be caught in the four corners and stored.

The Chimney is an important symbol in all of my New England house designs. I view the chimney as an imperative link that bonds a house, a home, and a family to the mother earth. Historically, it provided the heat, the food, and the stability of the structure itself through the cold and miserable winters of our New England ancestors. A good example of this for me is the Jethro Coffin House, the oldest house in Nantucket. In my first sketch I am thinking about locking a more contemporary chimney into the front corner of the house which will balance the front entry on the opposite corner, and in doing so create a tension to the front elevation.

A first sketch of the chimney... for shits n' giggles.

First Floor Plan

To me a plan needs to use architectural order to tell a lusty story. It can be myriad different types of ordering systems, but without it you become irrelevant...like most of Frank Gehry's work: sculpture without scale, void of any connection to its idiosyncratic vernacular, with architectural program forced within it. The celebration of this is scary, as idiotic and contrite as Adolf Loos's design for the Chicago Tribune Building. Once you choose your order you can pay respect to that order, or violate it. But the only in a way that the read of the story, or the participant of the architecture can understand through its experience. I try and use order, axis, scale of spaces, vistas and spatial relationships to carry you though a piece of architecture. Please, I don't pretend this is rocket science, it's basic freshman Arch 101... too bad to few remember it importance. Starting with my chimney and my front entry order, I have now constructed a 32 x 32 square (8' construction grid is good for material waste) and a 45 degree axis into the square plan.