When many people hire an architect to renovate or add on to an existing house, they put a substantial amount of thought into resale value—how many bedrooms and bathrooms to add for a future owner, what kind of amenities a family would need to make the house a solid investment, etc.
Can a house be five levels but all on one story? It sounds like a riddle, but in fact the answer to that question was the solution to the design challenge of Marc and Elaine Gradman’s vacation home in Inverness Park, California.
The Web sites designed by Huge (hugeinc.com) for Hillier (hillier.com) and DeStefano + Partners (dplusp.com - below) open with pages that tell the viewer about how each firm looks at architecture and design. Hillier’s is very people-oriented; DeStefano’s speaks about the things that influence the firm’s work. Design principles One reason to hire an independent Web designer is to get an outside eye. As aesthetically oriented as architects are, they still make basic design errors when taking on the design of their sites. There are many, including unattractive background colors with unreadable type, use of pointless animations that can’t be
If your firm isn’t called Gehry Partners, or Herzog & de Meuron, you probably believe in the importance of having a Web site that offers viewers an abundance of information about your company’s projects and services. Even though the American Institute of Architects’ newly published Firm Survey says that repeat business brings over half of the new work to architecture firms, it can only help to show the world who you are and what you do. Alice Kimm, AIA, says the purpose of John Friedman Alice Kimm’s site (jfak.net) is “to recruit the right kind of client.” 64North (64north.com) designed
When officials at Banner Health asked designers from NBBJ’s Seattle office to create their new, 452,238-square-foot hospital in west Phoenix, they said they wanted the place to be “warm.”