Change starts at home.

I grew up in a one bathroom home. Somewhere in my childhood, we gained a second bathroom in the basement with a shower but overall the majority of our bathroom time was shared between two parents and two kids.?

There were certain inconveniences to this situation and the second bathroom downstairs did solve some of the scheduling problems, but overall, I don’t really remember this being a massive burden to overcome. On the contrary, there was a certain connection that came with being physically close in a space that already had a certain amount of intimacy built in.?

Nowadays, this reality is met with absolute horror as the en-suite bathroom and guest powder rooms have become the norm.?

Well, not in my house. Similar to my childhood, we have existed with 1 bathtub/shower for a family of 4 until this year, and really, the additional shower we put in was more aimed at our aging parents than our growing teenagers.?

The same issue can be rolled out across every aspect of modern homes. As they have become larger, they have become less places of connection and more places of isolation.?

When I was born, the average single family house was about 1500sf. Nowadays that number has pretty much doubled. Along the way, family sizes have been shrinking to the point that the area attributed to each member of a single family household these days is about 1000sf.?

This increase in size has done very little to improve any parts of our lives. From an environmental perspective, this growing typology is an obvious nightmare, but even from a basic human happiness point of view, stats show that there is no correlation between the increase in house size and happiness. In fact, the opposite is true. Families are more disconnected both spatially and emotionally than ever before.?

Add the reliance on technology, and you have basically privatized home life. The typical spec house has been designed so that a family can live together and almost never see each other. If it wasn’t for the security system, you might not know if anyone else was actually in the home with you.?

As our connection to each other is strained, new homes’ connection to nature continues to become more strained as well. Our urge to maximize the buildable area of our homes has sacrificed outdoor space. The size of a site is now only celebrated due to the corresponding size of the house you are allowed to build. There is little mention of the natural world being a value or benefit to modern life.?

So, Where am I going with this?

Well, I am incubating early ideas for a company focused on developing better places to live. Through a growing family of residential projects, we aim to prove the value of good design as a tool to recalibrate our relationship with each other and the natural world.?

As our first task, we are taking on a new version of the “spec house”, a typology that traditionally builds the most for the least. Never a good recipe.?

Is this going to change the world or solve the housing problem that faces our communities? Not likely… but it will make a mark, and that is what matters. I believe that if we are to create a more grounded, conscious and empathetic world, change needs to start somewhere, and in this case,?it’s going to start at home.

Stay Tuned.?