Close Article
Custom Design Home - The Design Brief
By Nicole Fransen
Where do you start to design a custom design home? The Design Brief.
Do you know what you want? Do you know what you need? These are two very different questions with very different answers. No matter what your budget is, you will have to get clear on this. You will have to come up with a list! We in the design profession refer to it by the more fancy term of "Design Brief" and it can consist of a scratched out list on the back of an envelope to a 30 page document with magazine inserts, sample plans and paint swatches.
The more complete your Design Brief is, the easier it is to come up with suitable custom home design solutions. Some people like to keep their brief very open, leaving it to the designer to miraculously come up with the perfect design. Whilst those with finely honed psychic powers can achieve this task, it really is akin to trying to shoot a moving target in the dark. It is a process that leads to high expectations from a client - especially if the designer has been foolish enough to promise such a miracle - and usually ends in disappointment.
Having a good Design Brief does not mean that you have to come up with a plan as such, that is the designers job! But feel free to express your own creative talents if you want to start working up a preliminary plan. Thumbnail sketches are good! No-one expects you to be an architect. A plan doesn't have to be to scale, it is important to just get a concept of the sort of spaces you will need. A bubble diagram with labeled circles for rooms is a good starting point.
I describe the design process to my clients as being like doing a jigsaw - they provide the individual pieces and I put it all together for them to create the overall picture. Custom home design does not necessarily translate as "over the top" and expensive. I've designed many modest homes that have been a perfect blend of bringing the functions you need with some special features to make a home unique, individual and a reflection of the client's personality.
Your brief really needs to consist of some basics: Types of room, Room sizes, Vehicle accommodation, How you want spaces to interconnect, Overall house size, Budget, Outdoor areas, Other structures, pools etc., Special needs or hobbies to be catered for, Furniture sizes, .......the list can get as detailed as you like. Include your "wish list" items but realise that budget will dictate how much you can include in the final home design. Remember designers are usually very visual people, so the more pictures you have to communicate your ideas, the better.
Custom Home Design
Nicole specialises in home design and offers advice on her blog Insider Advice on Home Design
http://ask-the-architect.blogspot.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nicole_Fransen
Close Article
Architect: Translating Visions Into Workable Spaces
By Robert Thatcher
You can see him sitting hours on end at his drafting table, his drawing lights on, gesticulating, talking to himself translating the images that the client conveyed into tangible and workable designs.
Architects are planners and builders. Their craft takes into consideration the availability of materials, principles of engineering, aesthetics, building codes, local regulations, structural principles and bill of the materials. He must be knowledgeable on the methods that are available to the builder, the ability to negotiate with the builder for the best cost and time frame possible and oversee the construction. Architects must have the capability of understanding the clients� environment providing advice and translating the images that was conveyed into a final design. The architect is a planner and a builder. An architect affects landscapes.
Architecture is an old craft. It came from the Greek word arkhitekton or chief builder. Today however, a chief builder, a draughtsman and an architectural technologist may render architectural services but may not necessarily be called an architect. Architects like many professions are required to have a specialized education, a work experience and a license to practice. They are recognized at par with Doctors, Lawyers and Engineers.
It has often been said that what we eat is what we become. By extension, our homes or the edifices that we construct reflect very much what we are. Where we live affects in a very big way what we are trying to tell the world. It is a good approximation of the lifestyles we lead and the attitudes we take. Our homes for example tell people a lot about our preferences and our standards. These are some of the very important factors that the architect has to bring forward in building our homes and the edifices that we want.
Depending on the country where they are practicing their professions, architects are expected to have completed requirements and in many countries these can be stringent.
In the United States, before a person is designated the title of �Architect�, he is required to have a degree from schools accredited by the NAAB and must have an internship with a licensed architect for three years. After that he has to take and pass a series of examinations from the NCARB or the National Council of Architectural Registration Board.
In some cases though, a person who have not taken a degree in architecture but has worked for a licensed architect for ten years can be allowed to take Architect Registration Examination or the ARE. If he passes that he can be given a license to practice architecture.
In the United States, there are ways and type by which to earn a professional degree in Architecture. The first is the Bachelor in Architecture, which takes five years to finish. After that a documented apprenticeship of three years is required. There is also the Masters Degree in Architecture and the Doctorate in Architecture.
The pre-professional degrees are Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, Bachelor of Science in Architecture, the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Architecture and the Bachelor of Environmental Design these courses takes four years to finish.
All licensed architects in the United States use the suffix RA for Registered Architects. If the architect is a member of the American Institute of Architects, which is a professional organization that provides network services to architects in the United States he also suffixes AIA to signify his affiliation.
Robert Thatcher is a freelance publisher based in Cupertino, California. He publishes articles and reports in various ezines and provides architect resources on http://www.your-architect.info
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robert_Thatcher
Close Article
Architectural Rendering
By Alison Cole
Architectural rendering basically means preparing and presenting a proposed design of a building for the approval of the person who wants to construct it. It may be a commercial or a residential unit. Formerly, the architects and designers would just draw bare outline sketches of the various parts of the building giving their dimensions and how each room/unit of the building was to be juxtaposed with the other. It was almost impossible for you to correlate the built up unit with what you had actually dreamed of.
With the advent of computer aided design (CAD) and the related multimedia based architectural technologies, the process of presenting how the prospective building will actually appear after it is built, has undergone a sea change. Now as the owner of a building, you can virtually see and feel your dream-house at the stage of its conceptualization and planning long before it comes up. You can select a view from a wide spectrum of various designs of the building and colors of paints. You can also suggest changes as per your preferences.
In the past, it was almost impossible to communicate the subtleties of the designs and the shades of colors to the architect as you wanted them. Now, with the advancement of the presentation technologies, especially architectural rendering, it has now become possible to give expression to those subtleties which you always wanted in your dream project. The various permutations and combinations of architectural rendering techniques on the computer screen, a CD or even in print can give a very realistic shape to what you require in a building. Once you see the actual picture, you can get a clear-cut idea if the output is actually what you require or some changes would make it perfect.
Sometimes you just have to give information in electronic design format about your project along with your proposed budget, and you can get various best possible designs to choose from within just a period of one week or so. Computer based architectural rendering technologies have revolutionized the initial stage conceptualization, planning and designing of the project and eliminated the time consuming manual processes of making drawings which failed to come even remotely close to your aspirations of how you would like your dream building to appear.
Architectural Rendering provides detailed information on Architectural Rendering, 3D Architectural Rendering, Digital Architectural Rendering, Architectural Rendering Software and more. Architectural Rendering is affiliated with CAD Software.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alison_Cole