Nine questions you should know the answers to when beginning to work with an architect1. Do you want your master bedroom upstairs or downstairs? The answer to this one questions informs the design of the whole house. Younger couples especially those with young children prefer their bedrooms upstairs in a little more secure location...older couples don't want to have to rely on a staircase. 2. Do you want your family bedrooms located in close proximity to the master or at a distance? Again, younger families prefer all bedrooms to be located together and families with older children prefer to have some distance between them. Children over ten years of age tend to stay up later, play loud music, and host noisy weekend sleepovers. 3. Are the facilities that make up the master bath to be "shared" or remain separate? In other words should the lavatories be located in the same large cabinet, or separated across the room? Should there be a single or two separate toilet compartments? There is no wrong answer here...it just happens that often one spouse is much more orderly than the other and it is therefore best for everyone to have their own space. 4. Will business associates ever visit the home office? If the answer is yes then the office shouldn't be upstairs adjacent to the master bedroom or anywhere within the more private areas of the home. A good location would therefore be just off the foyer where guest can come and go without disturbing the activities of the rest of the family. 5. How many people will you want to host at a sit-down dinner? The answer to this question can be a significant factor in determining the overall size of the house because the number of guests determines the size of the dining room, which in turn sets the precedent for the appropriate scale of the adjacent living room, which in turn influences the scale of almost everything else including the size of the foyer and the width of halls and so on! 6. Who actually does the cooking...anyone? Real cooking happens less and less in today's homes and therefore kitchens can be streamlined and more compact and therefore more integral to a homes more casual living areas. 7. Is an actual living room necessary? We have all know for years that people don't use their formal living rooms and finally it seems that they are beginning to disappear in new construction. Family life and social life is so centered around shared media experiences that living rooms are becoming a relic of the past. I find that it is much more enjoyable to gather together in a nicely proportioned room that is designed to accommodate lounging, viewing, eating, and play areas all under one roof instead of being thinly spread across two or three barely adjoining spaces. 8. Do you like to recycle? Hopefully the answer is "YES"! That means you will also be open to all sorts of innovations in sustainability, all of which will inform most of the rest of the house including, its systems, orientation, roof, siding, insulation, windows, etc. The new world of sustainable construction materials and LEED appropriate methods is nothing short of revolutionary.9. How many vehicles do you want to provide housing for? Families of today have many multiples of cars, not to mention mopeds, weekend cruisers, three wheelers, and even helicopters...all of which can add dramatically to the square footage requirements of a home which brings along with it all sorts of issues regarding access and scale. Armed with the answers to these few questions will help you speed thru your first few meetings and very soon you will be pouring over plans and sketches of your future dream house
