Architext #1302: Maybe Small IS Beautiful!

Last month, I wrote about how visitors to our online stock plan service freestoneplans.com overwhelmingly are looking at our smaller designs.  I have also noticed that same trend in my full-service, custom design clients.  I recently attended an open house at a project that we designed.  It involved renovations and additions to a small 18^th Century house.  The inset photo shows the project near completion.  This client was very clear from the outset: they needed more space, but they wanted to respect the scale and character of the house. And they wanted the additions and the other work to be well-planned, energy efficient and constructed of materials that, while being sympathetic to the house’s “period”, would offer them performance and longevity. They were not interested in the old “give me the most square footage for available dollars” approach.

The result was a design that included two additions, the “bump-out” you see to the right is how we expanded their dining area.  The other addition is to the left (you can barely see it) and created two small bedrooms on the first floor. We also provided an accessible full bath (they are looking ahead to their elderly parents) on the first floor and fully renovated the other areas of the interior.  Work also included refurbishing and matching the old windows, a new envelope system that consisted of cedar siding, closed-cell spray foam insulation, wood roof shakes and a geothermal mechanical system.  In the end, a small two-bedroom house with one and half baths became a three-bedroom, two-bath house with better circulation and bigger core living areas.

Here was one of the particular priorities of this client.  It may seem odd to you, but I see similar sensitivities in many clients today.  I was challenged with creating enough additional space for dining without making it “compete” with the exterior scale of the main body of the house.  In reality, a 200 year-old oak tree defined the extent to which this addition projected out! The client was concerned about damaging the root system and was willing to compromise on square footage in the hope of having many more years with this old tree.  So, we extended the new foundation no farther out than the old cellar hatchway’s stone foundation (the addition ended up 8’x12’). Now that’s being Green.

E. F. Schumacher published his famous Small is Beautiful book in 1973 criticizing western economies for their largely inhuman “big” mentality.  I see some reflections of Schumacher ideas in new housing trends.

Dom Narducci is a practicing architect in Southbury, CT.  He provides complete architectural design and construction managment services (Freestone-inc.com) and offers a line of stock house plans (FreestonePlans.com). Additionally, Narducci teaches and writes on design and construction issues. Comments are welcome. You can also contact Dom at: dnarducci@freestone-inc.com.