How to Approach the Design of Your Own Custom Home
If you are unsure how to approach your own custom home or how to even think about it, this podcast conversation might give you a few starting points.
Architect Chris Novelli of Massachusetts based N3 Architecture interviewed Toby about his Book, Supersizing Bliss, his videos, and podcast, as well as Chris’ own book, The Homeowner's Guide to Residential Design and Construction Projects.
In Chris’ words, they discussed: “how our housing went wrong, what homeowners should be focused on instead, how [Toby] guides his clients in creating custom, modern, energy-efficient homes and more. … Toby shares some inspiring strategies and considerations that homeowners should have when setting out to build a custom home.”
You can watch the conversation on YouTube or listen to it in Apple Podcast or Spotify or at N3 Architecture.
Some Excerpts
Chris: “I would even suggest that people get a copy [of your book Supersizing Bliss] well in advance of [the design process]. Maybe even a year out. If you are a client and you are just thinking, I want to build a custom home or I want to have a really substantial renovation, and I want to design it for the way I live, and I want to design it around the things that bring me happiness, rather than just these cookie-cutter solutions - maybe you are a year out from starting the process - read the book! Read the book and your thought process will be changed.”
Toby: “Guidance is the number one service that we've provided to our clients. … It is essentially … the backbone of it all - is sort of the constant. And it's a learning process, a constant learning process. How do I translate everything that we get to deal with into a meaningful step by step process for our clients? Because what we do is essentially a prototype. Every single time.”
Chris: “I think my book focuses on the steps. The process that someone takes to go through a project. Because a lot of people that I talk to - that come to me for a new home or a substantial renovation - they don't know the steps. They don't know, what am I supposed to do, like step one, or what is schematics design, and then what sort of things do I need to provide to my architect to get through these steps? That's where my book comes in. It's more along the lines of: this is what you need to expect. But it really doesn't get into things that you should think about. And that's why I really think that your book is complimentary to that. Even myself, who's been an architect for 25 years at this point - that made me think about things differently. That's [why] it was really nice to read.”
Chris: “Do you want to go into a little bit about the energy efficient and sustainable building measures that can be implemented in a home and how you work that into your practice and your design process?
Toby: “It is without doubt that we are way behind. Our homes are in general energy pits. They're not sustainable and we are running out of time. We have no choice but to turn around and look at the way we design and build homes closely. The difficulty or the stumbling block that many people feel is the question of cost. It's already way too expensive. I can't afford a home already as it is. Now, you're talking about energy efficiency. And so the question for me has been over the last years: What is out there that we can implement right now that doesn't have to cost you more or if it does cost a little extra, it feels it's not too much and it feels good that we spend it on our home. Those measures have now become our design standards. Many of them are simple an straightforward.”
Toby: “ We should already be all walking around with a bad conscience about how we are leaving the planet behind, and how we're destroying our own habitat. And I feel, certainly within my own lifetime, we won't be able to look away anymore as we have been. And having a home [about which] we get to say, I tried my best to reduce the problems and possibly even have positive effect - when we are able to say that - then we get to sleep better at night. And it adds to the happiness and the bliss that we ought to [experience] in our homes.”
