shorelines ◦ interiors by gregory ◦
HOME | "BRILLIANT" MAGAZINE | NOVA SCOTIA | GARDEN | ARTICLES | ABOUT SL |CONTACT SL
"Sarah Susanka and friends"
It is the season for home improvement, so I am presenting two design tomes that might re-organize your thinking about how to design a house. These books are focused on architecture, but they are written to communicate in layman's terms, an understanding of interior space planning.
The first book is by Sarah Susanka, a leading residential architect in the United States. Her book is entitled The Not So Big House: a Blueprint for the Way We Really Live. Retreating from the “bigger is better” mantra that resulted in rows of gargantuan houses in the suburbs of North America, Susanka advises readers to scales down the drama of square footage, proffering a return to those heady days when quality mattered—“Comfort is born of smaller scale and beautiful details.” Downsizing the scale of the home creates financial savings that should be applied to the construction of details. And Susanka has a book full of details that will transform a house into a home; things like storage, ceiling height, double duty rooms, and a place for privacy. One of my favourite ideas is the integration of the dining table into the kitchen/family room. Formal dining rooms are one of those spaces that Susanka professes is no longer a priority in daily life. Since the kitchen is now an entertainment space, relocating the dining table here just expands the seating and serving area in the hearth of your home.
Critics call The Not So Big House “groundbreaking,” and I must say, there is sage advice within these pages (even though the photographs are a bit “earthy”). If you are craving more from Susanka, check out Creating the Not So Big House and Not So Big Solutions for Your Home. Sarah Susanka’s books have become a “movement” in home design, so obviously there is also a website: www.notsobighouse.com.
The second book is entitled Patterns of Home: the Ten Essentials of Enduring Design. Sarah Susanka’s colleagues write this book and Susanka provides the forward. Thirty-three homes are featured to illustrate the concepts of design that make a house a home. It sounds like the same book as above, but it is not. This presentation is more architecture-light. It is a survey of homes that are well adapted to their sites. It is a survey of homes that understand the importance of natural light as it changes direction through the seasons. And it is a survey of homes that connect interior living to the exterior view. The photographs are gorgeous and the homes express a wide range of styles. Check it out.
Home is not just an interior. It is that innate connectedness to our surroundings—that essence of home, that sense of place.