Michael Margerum Architect

The home is a very emotional keepsake. Creating designs for its inhabitants is even more emotional. Not only are we dealing with providing shelter, but experiences of memories, childhood, safety, security, family expansion, holiday gathering, childbirth and new family additions.

The American family transitions and redefines itself more than any other culture in the world. In an attempt to redefine "family" in America, the architect appears to be the only one remaining who is still held to maintaining many traditions in house design, despite these transformations. Perhaps through it all, deep down inside, we still yearn for home to cradle some hint of grandma's house- comfy, cozy, and full of understanding and love. An open mind is key to tailoring designs to a family's lifestyle and daily routines of living.

I remember in college, at the University of Michigan, our design instructor, who eventually became Dean, told us that a house should be designed for making love. Needless to say, at that time, we students were shocked at his "X-Rated" application to academic training. Then he followed up by saying that we knew nothing about making love! What he was referring to was not necessarily just "sex," but upholding the romanticism and support of love in the design and living experience of "home." What was more interesting is that when incorporating even a small semblance of this into my client's dreams, it seems to yield satisfactory results. It may not be evident in the design image, and it may not be a "show-stopping" presentation, but the expression, for a particular family, has it's own meaning and special experience.

Sometimes the architecture part is easy! It's getting the husband and wife to agree and make decisions about the future home's composition. The emerging technologies have provided excellent tools to assist in this venue. Email, jpgs, faxes, computer models are great tools for bouncing ideas back and forth, until satisfaction is achieved.

With a "big-picture" sensibility, architecture is not just providing a "set of plans," but the ability to see the client through to living in the home of their dreams. In America, it is eminent that the responsibility of assisting in securing that happiness rest with the services of the residential architect. Even though divorce and transitory relationships may appear to be prevalent, the desire for an ideal "home" will remain, forever, a human aspiration, for all.

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