It's All About Design and Function

Architect Matthew Stannard, the CEO and a founder of Stillwater, has spent much of his professional life developing contemporary custom homes for upscale clients-- in his birthplace of Wellington, New Zealand, and in Seattle where he spent fourteen years as a senior associate with Olson Sundbert Kundig & Allen. In that time he came to realize that thoughtful design, careful selection of finish materials and fanatical attention to efficiency can make owning a premium contemporary home a reality for many more people.

On Types of Architects

"I tend to think of myself as a product designer rather than as architect "sculpting" one-of-a-kind  custom homes.  A  home that works for its owners  requires the right mix of  aesthetics and function.  A product designer pays equal attention to both.  A home should be livable and beautiful—there is no need to compromise."  

On Founding Stillwater Dwellings

"Today's custom building industry is extremely fragmented and terribly inefficient.   Custom homes are more complex  with higher end finishes and challenging budgets.  However the process of sourcing materials and construction methods have changed very little in the last fifty years.   I saw firsthand the inefficiencies that come from constructing a complex structure, piece by piece at a challenging site, with weather related delays and numerous on-site changes.  There is a better way. 

 At Stillwater we're able to oversee the design and construction process from first conversation to move-in day.  Our clients pick from more than 20  floor plans,  choose a finish package and then modify it to fit their needs.  They select the accessories and we build the home in a tightly controlled environment to meet their specifications.  Construction timelines are not affected by weather delays, subcontractors schedules, or last minute changes.  It's all highly efficient—and very rewarding." 

Lets talk about your home plans.  Call 800-691-7302  or email adam@stillwaterdwellings.com.

Online Resources

Below is a list of helpful planning sites.

Pintrist.com -  Game changing site that makes gathering ideas from  web sources easy.  Its a great tool for saving examples of design elements, furnishing, window coverings and everything else that goes into a new home.

Houzz.com - Similar to Pintrist but focused only on house design and decorating.  An excellent place to gather ideas and review supplier catalogs

home-designing.com -  For those interested in home design from an international perspective.

I enjoyed the dry wit and content of Bill Bryson’s “A History of Almost Everything” so much that I'm really looking forward to reading his latest book “At Home, A Short History of Private Life”. Bryson has an incredible knack for making nonfiction especially interesting and at times, painfully funny. The Seattle Times reviews Bryson’s latest publication:

'At Home': Bill Bryson Constructs a History of Private Life

By Bharti Kirchner

Special to The Seattle Times

Most people would be satisfied with a home in a village like one in the county of Norfolk, England, and simply go on enjoying it, but not Bill Bryson ("A Short History of Nearly Everything"). A chance inspection of an attic to determine the source of a drip leads him in an unexpected direction. He begins strolling from room to room, pondering domestic objects around him — a fork, a sofa, a cabinet — and also the function of each space, as well as how it might have evolved through time. The journal he keeps results in a new book, quirky but entertaining, filled with observations about the history of everyday life spanning the last 150 or so years.

"Houses aren't refuges from history," Bryson says. "They are where history ends up."

'At Home: A Short History of Private Life'

by Bill Bryson

Doubleday, 452 pp., $28.95

Read the complete review here: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2013091826_br10bryson.html

And they work really well, both for cooling the room in summer and mixing warm air into the room in the winter. Although not totally passive they use the fraction of the energy of air-conditioning.

The latest model by Modern Fan, the Pensi, is their best yet, with its axle design and a sparser feel.

Happy New Year

All of us at Stillwater Dwellings wish you the very best in the new year. We're bullish on 2013, and believe it will be one of the best years to build in nearly a decade There are many reasons for our optimism.

• The election is finally over and the economy is continuing to show slow but steady growth. (We don't think congress will let us fall off the fiscal cliff—at least not for long)
• The housing market is recovering, with prices up in nearly all of our marketing areas.
• Land prices are relatively low when compared with pre-recession levels.
• Mortgage interest rates are at or near historic lows.
• Inflation is virtually non-existent.

If you're like most Stillwater clients, you've been thinking about building a custom home for years. You want a home tailored to your interests, esthetics, values and geography. You're tired of the many compromises you've made with your existing home. It's time for a home that fits—perfectly.

We believe that designing and building a new prefab home should be exciting and rewarding, not stressful and open ended. For most people building a custom home is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Stillwater's highly experienced consultants personally guide you through every step of the process—from feasibility study to final assembly on your lot.

All journeys start with a single step, and now's an ideal time. We urge you to contact us and start the conversation.

The Stillwater's Signature "Butterfly Roof"

There is no feature more distinctive than Stillwater Dwelling's soaring butterfly roof design. The modern soaring roof line is more than an attractive design element, it allows for ceilings heights up to 12', adding volume—and the ability to add dramatic window-walls blending inside and outside living areas.

In addition, Stillwater's unique modular building method allows rooms as large as 20' x 40' free of any interior support posts ideal for the great room concept.

The xbo is primarily a result of the Rotterdam based project ‘PARASITE’ (Prototypes for Advanced/ Ready-made/ Amphibious/ Small scale/ Individual/ Temporary/ Ecological houses). The idea of the xbo is to provide a mobile habitat for 2 young people on the move. The structure consists of two movable parts in sum twelve meters long, 3,2m wide and almost 3,5m high, the xbo is an attempt to keep things to a minimum, to stick to the basics and focus on the essential.

Today many people are economical prisoners in their homes. One way out could be to change our way of living. In a small house the focus is on what is actually needed. The house may be a tool for such a change. This means that simple and basic qualities of life is the main theme for the development of this minimal space. We want to use this tool as an object of investigation and discussion. Not only while it is created, but also when it is put into use.”

Besides the obvious constraints of topography, sun, wind, budget, etc., there are also constraints imposed by the properties of materials and systems; it’s from all of these constraints one can tease out meaningful solutions that are not arbitrary or faddish but are a thoughtfully considered response.

At Stilllwater Dwellings, modular construction is integral to the aesthetic language we have developed without dominating or overpowering it. For instance, the structural expression of the roof beams at the module ”marriage lines” create a secondary scale that define individual spaces within a larger room, giving a human scale to balance the overall dimensions.

In the Living Hall, the kitchen, dining, and sitting areas are given identity by the structural expression of the exposed wood beams which are regulated by modular dimensions.

“He called his modest house “Usonian,” after the United States. It was a single story built on a monolithic concrete slab and joined to a carport and not a garage. Wright believed that it could be replicated all across the country.

His main desire, which no contemporary architects pay any attention to whatever, is shelter for ordinary people...he got it down at one point in 1940 to $5000 per house for a family with children and a kitchen and gardens...and openness and a real milieu in which it was a highly civilized way to live. He thought about it all the time; he took commissions from the poor as well as from the rich, something unheard of in 1995, 1996... We’re not like that anymore and this was very important in any appraisal of what his work represents because he hasn’t had the following that he should have had in respect to shelter.”

—Brendan Gill, Writer

“What would be really sensible in this matter of the modest dwelling for our time and place? Let’s see how far the Herbert Jacobs house at Madison, Wisconsin, is a sensible house. This house for a young journalist, his wife, and small daughter, is now under roof. Cost: Fifty-five hundred dollars, including architect’s fee of four hundred and fifty. Contract let to P. B. Grove.

To give the small Jacobs family the benefit of the advantages of the era in which they live, many simplifications must take place. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs must themselves see life in somewhat simplified terms. What are essentials in their case, a typical case? It is not only necessary to get rid of all unnecessary complications in construction, necessary to use work in the mill to good advantage, necessary to eliminate so far as possible, field labor which is always expensive: it is necessary to consolidate and simplify the three appurtenance systems—heating, lighting, and sanitation. At least this must be our economy if we are to achieve the sense of spaciousness and vista we desire in order to liberate the people living in the house. And it would be ideal to complete the building in one operation as it goes along. Inside and outside should be complete in one operation. The house finished inside as it is completed outside. There should be no complicated roofs.”

From An Autobiography, by Frank Lloyd Wright

Originally designed as more humane temporary shelter for displaced people in emergency situations, Icosa Pods were first tested at Burning Man. Gorgeous to behold and out of this world.

The structures, from Folded Homes, are basic prefab huts made of plastic pieces that snap together like an Erector set. Easy to build with no need for special tools or skills, the Pods are extremely strong and yet very lightweight.

•          Sentiment; where you grew up, and the architectural roots of the family home

•          Professional aspirations, aka ‘keeping up with the Jones’

•          Need, as with a large, perhaps extended family

•          Or just proximity. You might not know a craftsman from a Chrysler, but you want to live near the #5 bus line.

“We wanted to hear how residents — especially people with long-term, intimate knowledge of living with Mies — think about this unique modernist environment and how they confront and adapt it to meet their needs. During our research, we were struck by the casual attitude that many residents have toward the architecture. Then again, Detroit has an abundance of beautiful housing options: one can live in a huge Victorian mansion, a beautiful arts and crafts house or a cavernous loft-conversion space in a former factory. Living in a townhouse built by a renowned architect isn’t as noteworthy as one might think. At the same time, such nonchalance is a mark of success: the homes are great because they work, not because they come affixed with a famous name.”

It’s beyond measure how many times I’ve heard people say “...we don’t use half our house”, and the reason they built a bigger home than they needed was for “resale” considerations. Developers and Real Estate Agents have been touting the “must maximize the property” gospel for years as if it was some golden rule. Thing is, they maximized quantity not quality. This is just another urban myth, and with the recent recession, more and more people now realize that big houses are just a waste. The self-perpetuating myth has been busted.

The turnaround probably started when Susan Susanka published The Not So Big House, a revolutionary book that struck a cord with those who were leaning ahead of the curve. A classic, and worth exploring: