It has been about 8 months since Summer and Robert moved into the Sunshine Canyon house. It is now filled with the sounds of pets and newborn twins - well on the way to making the house a home. For me the process of design starts with trying to imagine the life of a space, its sights, sounds, taste and feel. That imagined place only comes into reality with occupation, not the formality you see in architectural photographs. And even then, the events and holidays imagined come about slowly, as does the growth of the surrounding landscape. It is a bit of a cliche to say you are more interested in process than product, but too often architects mean their design process, not the entire sweep of time that encompasses the initial dreams of the homeowners, through design and construction and into the living of the house.
A hopefully soon-to-be executed revision of the M. Gerwing Architect's website will attempt to document this sweep. Select projects will include documentation of the site, ideas of the homeowners, design sketches, construction photos, traditional architectural "finished" photos, and owner's snapshots of life at the house.
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