As architects go through the design process, we need to work with an essential checklist that will ultimately improve the quality of our designs:
- Sustainability – cars apparently have less environmental impact than operating buildings. Since HVAC creates up to 40% of carbon emissions, we start by calculating the most energy efficient products into our architectural designs.
- Accessibility – It’s obvious that we need to take disabilities into account, especially those of aged persons. This also entails discussing with our clients how they envision aging into their residential investments and whether or not, a later sale is intended. In considering future sales, suitability for disabled persons should be considered, wherever possible. Where public buildings are concerned, both owner and architect have a duty to provide accessibility to persons with disabilities.
- Functionality – Creating a functional building or space can be challenging at times due to pre-existing or other conditions. We put most of our hours into getting functionality right.
- Concise Building Information – It’s important that architects’ drawings are well labelled and concise so that contractors and builders are the least confused about construction details. Sometimes, more information is better than having too little information.
- Emotional Resonance – A client’s building or space must ‘speak’ to them. Every design must awaken a sense of belonging in our clients. Whatever the purpose of the building or space, they must fulfill their purpose first and foremost.
- Endurance – Building designs and spatial planning need to be structurally sound. Aesthetically, they must prove their longevity and designs must have a propensity to last through several decades, especially in context to a building’s maintenance. Endurance might mean a totally different time frame based on context, cost and materials than some buildings that have lasted for many centuries where the erection of buildings by slave labor was the routine.
- Socially Beneficial – Architects have a responsibility to work to achieve results that benefit society.
- Ergonomics and Scaling – Throughout the centuries, great buildings related to the scale of the people who inhabited them and their intended usage. The buildings also related in scale to their immediate environment. By sub-contract, we provide 3D imaging and computer modeling technologies. Hand-made building modeling also gives a sense of scale in a building’s context and landscape.
- Affordability – The more affordable a project has to be, the more challenging it becomes for an architect. Great imagination and sense of creativity is needed to come up with innovative and well functioning solutions. Inventing an affordable solution that can be mass produced can truly become a very satisfying achievement for an architect.
A client’s building or space must ‘speak’ to them. …. and they must awaken good emotions that foster healthy production attitudes and a zest for life.
