“It’s an honor to see our work resonate with so many people,” says Jeff Kovel, founder of Skylab. “Being included in the LEGO collection alongside iconic landmarks like Fallingwater, Notre Dame, and the Taj Mahal is—in of itself—incredible recognition. It is not lost on us that LEGO is one of the world’s most recognizable brands. Its ability to inspire creativity and imagination in both young people and adults aligns closely with Skylab’s ethos of exploration and discovery. We’re excited to contribute to that spirit of creative engagement and see our work evolve into new expressions.”

Adapted from book to screen, the first Twilight movie was released in 2008. The series was a major hit with moviegoers, especially Millennials, and is among the top 20 highest-grossing movie franchises of all time, according to CBR. The “Cullen House” set includes the kitchen and living space, the library, and an infirmary depicted in the movie. Seven mini figures including Bella and Edward, played by Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, are included in the set, which retails for $219.99 and can be purchased now on the LEGO website.

—

Founded in 1999, Skylab has emerged as a leading creative force in the Pacific Northwest and North America. At the vanguard of innovative and sustainable design, the practice is known for a range of spectacular residences designed for leading creatives, as well as distinctive music venues, resorts, and other high-profile projects, including the Serena Williams Building at Nike’s World Headquarters, N M Bodecker Foundation, and the Columbia Building. The firm’s work is published widely and recognized through numerous design awards. In 2023, “Skylab: The Nature of Buildings,” a monograph on the firm’s work was published by Thames & Hudson.

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One of the more delightful projects of Austin, Texas–based Matt Fajkus Architecture isn’t a house at all: It’s a two-story dock on Lake Austin, designed with the sun in mind. An angled roof and perforated steel screens provide a precisely calibrated amount of sun and shade throughout the year, as well as shelter from the breezes and filtered views. “The thing that just completely stood out to us [is that] it’s architecture as art, or is it art as architecture?… It just makes you smile,” says Stephanie Kingsnorth, AIA, a juror for the AIA Austin 2023 Design Awards, where Filtered Frame Dock received an award of merit. One year prior, it won an Honor Award in this magazine’s architecture competition.

Since 2010, the eponymous firm has been creating intriguing, light-filled spaces that coax out the distinctive characteristics of each site—which could be its slope, its rocks and trees, or even its iron-rich red soil. A quick scroll through the firm’s website shows how different these architectural interventions can be. According to principal Matt Fajkus [pronounced FI-cus], the variety of responses stems from the geographic diversity of Austin, his hometown. “We’re at a fault line,” he elaborates. “Immediately east of downtown is very flat, moist prairie land, and immediately west of town is very rocky and hilly— an area that is very good for architecture and very bad for farming. We have a lot of interesting changes in topography, different tree and plant species, and this whole ecotone that exists in this convergence of different realms.”

These nuances of the natural world fuel Matt’s ambitions as an architect. When he was getting his master’s in architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, his thesis adviser and role model was Pritzker Prize–winning architect Rafael Moneo. “What I admire about Moneo is his sensitivity to try to do something a little special and unique for each project—case-by-case, contextually driven work,” he says. Like Moneo, Matt is both a practitioner and a teacher. He is a tenured professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, and has received multiple awards for teaching over the last 14 years. Along with creative problem-solving, he teaches soft skills, such as how to give a compelling presentation of design ideas. 

As a child, however, he was very introverted and had a bad stutter, relying on drawing to communicate his thoughts. His parents, who were both teachers, modeled “extreme patience and a heightened sense of empathy,” says Matt. While he was getting his undergrad degree in architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington, he began apprenticing with Max Levy, who has been called the poet laureate of Dallas architecture, and worked for him for a couple of years after graduating. A summer internship at Foster + Partners in London during his time at Harvard led to a job offer from the firm, where he spent five years remodeling airports and designing high-speed rail stations and skyscrapers. “It was incredible to realize the power of design at any scale,” says Matt. “As the Eameses would talk about it, when you’re designing a room, you’re thinking about the next scale up from the room, and the next scale down, which is the furniture or the built-ins.”

His experience at Foster + Partners, while inspiring, also helped him realize that he didn’t want to work for a big firm. He came back home to join the faculty at UT Austin, and soon launched his own practice with the help of architect Sarah Johnson, AIA, who had recently graduated from UT Austin. The two built the practice from the ground up; today, Sarah is the co-principal in their firm of eight people. “We are very collaborative,” she says. “Matt’s role is to help us synthesize those ideas, make them really strong, and communicate them. It feels like studio [class in architectural school] where we get to be really creative, within real-life constraints.”

Since the relationship between indoors and outdoors is so integral to its projects, the firm increasingly began to take the lead on the interiors as well (Matt, Sarah, and some employees are also licensed interior designers). “We can offer a streamlined experience in terms of the design as well as the representation, where we can have everything built into the model and simulate different things between inside and outside,” Matt notes.

The aforementioned dock, completed in 2019, is probably the most high-profile of the firm’s projects to date. Around the same time, the first batch of built residences had their debut, catching the eye of the design community. Among the reasons for all the attention: the casual-chic Bracketed Space House, whose transparent dining “bridge” allows views through the home and has a crisp infinity-edge pool. 

Among the more recent work is Descendant House, a multigenerational house that elegantly accommodates three generations plus guests. “They’re all in the same structure, but each has their own privacy, and spaces to mix,” says Matt. The 4,000-square-foot home is a split level, with the younger generation and their children located on the upper floor and guests and grandparents in separate volumes below. The firm figured out how to showcase the distinct microclimates on the steeply sloping site: The upper level flows onto a sunny roof terrace that connects to the home’s vegetable garden, and the common areas below look into a shady tree canopy.

Manifold House, meanwhile, demonstrates another type of architectural sleight of hand: It looks like the simple “modern farmhouse” requested by the owner, but has the flow and porosity of contemporary architecture. Located in the rugged terrain of Texas Hill Country, a 30-minute drive west of Austin, the deeply sloped site also increased its complexity. To minimize grading, the design team created a long, two-story house at the top of the site and tucked a third floor into the slope below. Tall retaining walls on either side hold the slope back, creating narrow patios and allowing light to come through side windows on the bottom floor. “The farmhouse rhythm of punched windows”—to quote Matt—gives way spectacularly to a glass-walled double-height living room on the lower levels.

Also in Texas Hill Country is the Mount Sharp Residence, a retirement dream home on a 22-acre property. The firm sited the low-slung dwelling along one of the site’s small plateaus, which run east-west, to maximize sunlight, natural ventilation, and views. Various functional elements, such as kitchen appliances and storage areas, are tidily organized along extra-thick walls that run perpendicular to the plateau. These rugged walls, clad in coarse-cut stone, are part of the home’s passive ventilation system: The breezes coming over the top of the plateau can flow through the openings and cool the spaces between the walls. The firm’s description of this house reads: “The materiality of the project is concentrated, regional, and meant to provide comfort and shelter when the elements are extreme, yet its solidity dissolves when the house is opened up.”

While the firm was completing the design of Mount Sharp, Matt had recently finished writing “Architectural Science and the Sun: The Poetics and Pragmatics of Solar Design.” Cowritten with architect Dason Whitsett, the nearly 300-page opus is about how to bring sunlight thoughtfully into a building and use it for lighting and ambiance, as well as how to mitigate its glare and propensity to overheat spaces. There’s a whole chapter devoted to “Creating Shadows.” According to Matt, the book’s influence on the firm’s work is clearest in Mount Sharp, which is designed around the sun for energy efficiency as well as phenomenology and wellness. 

“Ultimately, my goal is to continually hone my own craft in both critical creative endeavors and teaching, simultaneously preparing students to make their own meaningful contributions to the built environment,” he says. The two sides of his work enrich and uplift each other.

The post Pro-File Design: Matt Fajkus Architecture appeared first on Residential Design.

Nationally, according to the quarterly all-transactions House Price Index (HPI) released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), U.S. house prices rose 5.4% in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. The year-over-year rate has decreased from a high of 20.6% in the second quarter of 2022, but is higher than the previous quarter’s rate of 5.2%.

The quarterly FHFA HPI not only reports house prices at the national level but also provides insights about house price fluctuations at the state and metro area levels. The FHFA HPI used in this article is the all-transactions index, measuring average price changes in repeat sales or refinancings on the same single-family properties.  

Between the fourth quarter of 2023 and the fourth quarter of 2024, 49 states and the District of Columbia had positive house price appreciation. Vermont topped the house price appreciation list with an 8.9% gain, followed by New Jersey and Connecticut both with 8.3% gains. At the other end, Louisiana had the lowest house price appreciation (+2.1%), while Hawaii was the only state to experience a price decline (-4.3%). Among all 50 states and the District of Columbia, 31 states reached or exceeded the national growth rate of 5.4%. Compared to the third quarter of 2024, 32 out of the 50 states had an acceleration in house price appreciation in the fourth quarter.

House price growth widely varied across U.S. metro areas year-over-year, ranging from -4.9% to +24.7%. In the fourth quarter of 2024, 18 metro areas, in reddish color on the map above, had negative house price appreciation, while the remaining 366 metro areas experienced positive price appreciation. Punta Gorda, FL had the largest decline in house prices, while Cumberland, MD-WV saw the highest increase over the previous four quarters.

Additionally, house prices have increased dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic. Nationally, house prices rose 53% between the first quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2024. More than half of metro areas saw house prices rise by more than the national price growth rate of 53%.

The table below shows the top and bottom ten markets for house price appreciation between the first quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2024. Among all the metro areas, house price appreciation ranged from 11.2% to 87.8%. Ocean City, NJ experienced the highest house price appreciation. Lake Charles, LA had the lowest appreciation for the third quarter in a row.

—Jing Fu, NAHB Eye on Housing

The post House Price Appreciation by State and Metro Area: Fourth Quarter 2024 appeared first on Residential Design.

According to the latest U.S Census Construction Spending data, multifamily construction spending fell by 0.7% for the month, extending the downward trends that began in December 2023. This decline aligns with the weakness in the Multifamily Production Index (MPI) and a lower number of multifamily homes under construction. Improvement spending declined by 1.5% in January but was 14.3% higher compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, spending on single-family construction rose by 0.6% in January, continuing its growth after a  five-month decline from April to August. This growth also aligns with steady builder confidence seen in the Housing Market Index. However, single-family construction remained 0.9% lower than a year ago.

The NAHB construction spending index is shown in the graph below. The index illustrates how   spending on single-family construction has slowed since early 2024 under the pressure of elevated interest rates and concerns over building material tariffs. Multifamily construction spending growth has also slowed down after the peak in July 2023. Meanwhile, improvement spending has increased its pace since late 2023.

Spending on private nonresidential construction was up 1.8% over a year ago. The annual private nonresidential spending increase was mainly due to higher spending for the class of manufacturing ($12.4 billion), followed by the power category ($5.5 billion).

—Na Zhao, NAHB Eye on Housing

The post January Private Residential Construction Spending Dips appeared first on Residential Design.

There were 47,000 total custom building starts during the fourth quarter of 2024. This marks a 7% increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. Over the last four quarters (2024 as a whole), custom housing starts totaled 181,000 homes, just below a 2% increase compared to the prior four quarter total (178,000 in 2023).

Currently, the market share of custom home building, based on a one-year moving average, is approximately 18% of total single-family starts. This is down from a prior cycle peak of 31.5% set during the second quarter of 2009 and the 21% local peak rate at the beginning of 2023, after which spec home building gained market share.

Note that this definition of custom home building does not include homes intended for sale, so the analysis in this post uses a narrow definition of the sector. It represents home construction undertaken on a contract basis for which the builder does not hold tax basis in the structure during construction.

—Robert Dietz, NAHB Eye on Housing

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Billings were also soft at firms in all regions of the country in January. Firms located in the West saw very modest billings growth in the fourth quarter of 2024, but unfortunately, billings returned to negative territory to start the new year. Business conditions remained softest at firms located in the Northeast, which has been the trend in recent months. And billings softened further at firms located in the South, which saw more encouraging signs last fall, before weakening again. Billings also declined at firms of all specializations in January. Firms with a commercial/industrial specialization continued to be most likely to report softening business conditions, but billings have weakened at firms of all specializations in recent months.

Architecture firms report strong hiring to end 2024.

Conditions remained somewhat soft in the broader economy as well in January. Inflation in January was higher than anticipated, with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increasing by 0.5% from December and 3.0% from one year ago, the highest level since last June. Inflation growth in January was primarily due to increases in energy and food prices, as well as core goods (like used vehicles) and services (e.g., shelter away from home). Recently the Federal Reserve has signaled reluctance to lower interest rates further in the short term, and they will remain even less likely to do so if inflation remains at this higher level.

Nonfarm payroll employment added 143,000 new positions in January, modestly below the average monthly increases of 166,000 in 2024. However, architecture services employment ended 2024 on a strong note after shedding jobs in the fall, adding 2,200 new positions in December (the most recent data available). This amounts to a net loss of 1,400 positions for 2024, as employment at architecture firms has declined by a total of 4,100 positions since the post-pandemic peak in June 2023.

Nearly all architecture firms pay for membership dues/licensure fees for their staff.

This month we asked firm leaders about their support of membership dues and licensure fees for their architecture staff. Overall, 85% of responding firm leaders indicated that they pay membership dues/licensure fees for their staff in some capacity, increasing to nearly all large firms with annual billings of $5 million or more (97%). Nearly all firms (98%) reported that they pay for AIA membership dues (82% in full, 16% in part), followed by 93% that pay for professional accreditation/certification fees (65% in full, 28% in part), 91% that pay for licensure fees (75% in full, 16% in part), 85% that pay for NCARB fees (65% in full, 20% in part), and 84% that pay for professional membership dues (other than AIA, NCARB) (55% in full, 29% in part).

Overall, responding firm leaders reported that an average of 69% of the architecture staff at their firm that are eligible for membership are members of AIA. This is highest at firms with an institutional specialization (72% of eligible staff are members) and lowest at firms with a multifamily residential specialization (59% of eligible staff are members). In addition, a majority of firms (72%) also reported that, in general, a fairly stable share of architecture staff at their firm has remained AIA members over the past five to 10 years. Just 14% indicated that a smaller share of architecture staff at their firm are members now than five to 10 years ago, while an additional 14% reported that a higher share of architecture staff at their firm are members now than five to 10 years ago.

Finally, when asked to rate the importance of the principal benefits of having eligible employees as AIA members, nearly half of responding firm leaders (48%) rated the promotion of greater levels of professional development of their staff as a very important benefit, while an additional 40% rated it as a somewhat important benefit. Responding firm leaders also highly rated giving employees an opportunity to connect with others in the profession (33% rated as very important, 50% as somewhat important), giving their firm the perception of being more professional/a more desirable place to work (32% rated as very important, 50% as somewhat important), and giving staff access to practical tools and research (30% rated as very important, 49% as somewhat important). Firms rated helping them to win projects and win more desirable projects, helping retain staff, and helping advocate for favorable policy as less important benefits to having eligible employees at their firm as AIA members.

Visit AIA’s website for detailed information about this, and past billing index reports.

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With a 0.6-acre waterfront site abutting another half-acre parcel they owned, they could have built a residence of almost any size. Instead, they prioritized creating an intimate family compound with the existing guest cottage on the neighboring parcel, a shared garage, and a boathouse. “They didn’t want the house to dominate the land,” Marcus says.

Naturally Planned

Designed by Marcus and MGa project architect Robyn Bell Gentile, AIA, the 4,820-square-foot home intricately weaves together stone, steel, and wood assemblies in a manner that both showcases New England craftsmanship and merges with the landscape when viewed from the water. The hand-blended mixture of 6-inch-thick granite from three local quarries cladding the structure’s main and walkout levels emulates the site’s mottled stone seawall. The upper level is clad with nickel-gap siding, painted a color that draws from the granite veneer and the dark browns, greens, and grays of the surrounding trees and lichen.

Exposed Douglas fir glulam rafters grace the home’s flat roof and run continuously from outside to in, a length of approximately 30 feet. Zinc painted on the cut ends helps the wood resist decay while insulation above the ceiling and collars at the fascia limit thermal bridging and air and water infiltration. Marcus says his firm aimed to “build a house that would, through its quality of construction, sustain itself naturally.”

The emphasis on timelessness continues inside, starting with a compressed entry walled with large-format granite masonry and inspired by the slot canyons of the Southwest. “You come into a dark and rich space of nooks and crannies that’s low and lit by a northern oriented stair,” Marcus says. An overhead black steel beam bridging the stone corridor frames the awaiting vignette: “You come into the atrium and everything opens up.”

Here, a double-height kitchen sits at a notched inset of the floor plan and faces the neighboring cottage, fostering connection and inviting in natural light. The volume of the space then closes again, with a shiplapped interior wall of the second-level primary suite bowing the ceiling height of a dining area and great room, before rising at the glazed rear elevation to reveal an unobstructed view of the lake—thanks to a 24-foot-long steel moment frame. “It’s very sequential in a dramatic way,” says Marcus, who was influenced by the compression and release of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House entry.

The Art of The Craft

The quality of light at water’s edge dictated the choice of natural materials and expert craftsmanship for interior finishes. “You get a lot of light reflecting off the water that, in turn, catches the walls, floors, and ceilings of the house,” he explains. “It makes drywall a disaster because light that comes in at a shallow angle will show any imperfection.” During construction, the architects carted prospective selections—tiles, granite, paint colors—to the site to gauge their appearance and character in the setting.

Using thin profiles where possible helps convey the seamless effect, while preserving material. For instance, those walls of subtly shimmery granite throughout the lower level may look like full blocks, but the stone is only a 1½-inch-thick veneer. Robyn credits the expertise of the mason, a repeat MGa collaborator, for “arranging the pieces to have the right amount of depth to catch the shadows from the light.”

Douglas fir glulam beams, ceiling slats, and wall panels warm the white oak flooring, while custom furniture in rift-sawn walnut adds visual interest. Each meeting of wood, stone, and steel members is a meticulously detailed work of art.

A glazed stairwell provides soft northern light, which filters to multiple floors via glass railing panels and open risers. The black steel mono stringer appears to tie into the house’s exposed steel structure, Robyn says, despite being an independent component. The floating granite treads reflect light and are more slip-resistant than wood treads, Marcus notes—an important consideration for a lake house where people often roam in socks. Similarly supporting the lifestyle, an east entrance on the foundation level grants direct access from the lake into a cabana area, complete with a sauna and facilities for showering, changing, and laundry.

This level also comprises a wine storage and tasting room, whose design Marcus unapologetically gleaned from the famed wine cellar of The French Laundry in Napa Valley. The tasting room walks out to a patio, bathing the space in eastern light.

The architects hope the Cove House, completed in the fall 2023, embodies for its owners what Bruce Springsteen might have envisioned when writing the song “My Beautiful Reward.” “That’s a concept that we followed,” Marcus says, “in trying to create an environment that they’re going to enjoy living in for the rest of their lives.”

Cove House

Lakes Region, New Hampshire

Architect: Marcus Gleysteen, AIA, partner in charge; Robyn Bell Gentile, AIA, principal/project architect, Marcus Gleysteen Architects, Boston

Builder: Tony Bourque, Burpee Hill Construction, Sunapee, New Hampshire

Interior furnishings: Nanette Chandler, Brookline, Massachusetts

Landscape architect: Greg Grigsby and Chris Kessler, Gradient Landscape Architects, New London, New Hampshire

Cabinetmaker: Matt Knittle, MK Wood Works, Enfield, New Hampshire

Architectural metalwork: Chris Aubrey, Modern Metal Solutions, Hudson, New Hampshire

Furniture maker: Blissmade, Dunbarton, New Hampshire

Mason: Stone Mountain Masonry, Belmont, New Hampshire

Painter: Lambert Coatings, Lempster, New Hampshire

Project size: 4,820 square feet

Site size: 0.6 acre

Construction cost: Withheld

Photography: Trent Bell

Key Products

Appliances: Wolf (range); Best (kitchen hood); Cove (dishwasher); Sub-Zero (refrigerator/freezer); Sharp (microwave oven); Tuzio (towel warmer); Electrolux (washer/dryer)

Bathtub: Kohler

Ceiling: Clear vertical grain Douglas fir

Cladding: TruExterior, natural granite veneer

Countertops: Wicked White quartzite (kitchen); Royal Danby (bathrooms); Colorquartz pewter (powder room); Ann Sacks Terrazzo Renata (wet bar)

Doors/windows: Duratherm (entry door, glass doors, windows); Rocky Mountain Hardware (entry hardware); Simpson Door Co. (passage door, garage); Emtek (interior door hardware)

Faucets: Dornbracht (kitchen, powder room, primary bathroom); Grohe (secondary bathroom); California Faucets (powder room); Hansgrohe (shower)

Fireplace: Granite (great room); Ortal (basement)

Glass: Weldwork (wine room)

Flooring: White oak; black slate tile (entry); porcelain tile (lower level)

HVAC: Dayus (bathroom grilles)

Lighting, exterior: Tech Lighting (recessed); Modern Forms (sconces, step lights)

Lighting, interior: WAC Lighting (recessed); Juno (recessed)

Sinks: Julien (kitchen); MTI Baths (primary bathroom); Kohler (secondary bathrooms)

Skylight: VELUX

Tile: Ann Sacks (primary and secondary bathrooms)

Toilet: TOTO

Wine racks: Vigilant

The post Case Study: Cove House by Marcus Gleysteen Architects appeared first on Residential Design.

The finished lot was the second largest cost at 13.7% of the sales price, down more than four percentage points from 17.8% in 2022.  The share of finished lot to the total sales price has fallen consecutively in the last three surveys, reaching a series low in 2024.

The average builder profit margin was 11.0% in 2024, up less than a percentage point from 10.1% in 2022.  

At 5.7% in 2024, overhead and general expenses rose when compared to 2022 (5.1%).  The remainder of the average home sale price consisted of sales commission (2.8%), financing costs (1.5%), and marketing costs (0.8%).  Marketing costs were essentially unchanged while sales commission and financing costs decreased compared to their 2022 breakdowns.

Construction costs were broken down into eight major stages of construction. Interior finishes, at 24.1%, accounted for the largest share of construction costs, followed by major system rough-ins (19.2%), framing (16.6%), exterior finishes (13.4%), foundations (10.5%), site work (7.6%), final steps (6.5%), and other costs (2.1%).

Explore the interactive dashboard below to view the costs and percentage of construction costs for the eight stages and their 36 components.

Table 1 shows the same results as the dashboard above in table format.  Please click here to be redirected to the full report (which includes historical results back to 1998).

—Eric Lynch, NAHB Eye on Housing

The post Cost of Constructing a Home in 2024 appeared first on Residential Design.

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This custom home is a 4,400 square foot waterfront home on the Kiawah River in Johns Island, SC. The residence was built by Tom Dillard of Dillard-Jones Custom Homes in collaboration with a Charleston-based architect, interior designer, landscape architect, and various local artists. While close to bustling historic Charleston, SC, Johns Island is a relatively remote and environmentally sensitive pastoral island surrounded by the Kiawah and Sono Rivers. The island is not serviced by natural gas utilities, so many homes, businesses, and farms on the island use propane.

Benefits of Propane in Custom Homes
Propane provides homeowners the flexibility to build and live where they want without sacrificing comfort. It also benefits custom builders like Dillard-Jones, who sees propane as a key part of their home design and building process. Tom Dillard notes, “Propane is a versatile and reliable energy source that enables us to build high-quality, timeless homes that integrate well with the surrounding natural landscape. We use propane as an energy source for our homes during construction and when we turn it over to the homeowners.”

This is especially important in remote areas where access to utilities can be challenging. On Johns Island, homeowners are drawn to the area because of the expansive natural beauty, but natural gas service is not available. “Most of the places we build today, where people want to build custom homes, are not necessarily next to the city center. It can be difficult to get utilities all the way out to these more remote developments. Propane makes that easy, because we can bring it to the jobsite, use it to build the home (because power can’t be hooked up until later in the project), and then use it to power the home after we’re ready for people to move in. Without propane, we would not be able to build in places like this—it really opens up more areas for us to build.” In this custom home, propane is used throughout the main house and carriage house to power appliances and amenities, starting with propane-fueled copper gas lanterns that welcome guests at the entrance. The kitchen features a propane range, while a Heat Pump Helper  uses a tankless water heater to provide energy-efficient supplemental heating in both the main house and carriage house. There are propane fireplaces in the living room and screened porch, as well as a propane-fueled outdoor grill, heated pool, and backup whole home generator. All of this propane is supplied by a 1,000-gallon buried propane tank. The local propane servicer maintains, monitors and fills the tank when needed, and the future homeowner will never have to worry about running out of energy.

Propane also adds grid resilience via propane-powered backup generators, a vital piece of equipment in this coastal region prone to hurricanes and power outages. Dillard believes that over the past 20 years homeowner’s priorities and mindsets have changed significantly. “Today people are looking for independence and security in their homes. If a storm comes, they want to have the security of backup power.” In fact, Hurricane Debby made landfall as they were finishing up the house and power was out on the island for several days. Dillard says, “We were able to properly maintain this home and keep the air on because we had a propane backup generator. In times like that, particularly on the islands, it’s very important to have that backup resource.”

Johns Island is an environmentally sensitive area that the community and developers work hard to preserve. The builder also chose propane because it is a sustainable energy source that fits with the island’s environmental ethos. In addition to the low carbon emissions and energy efficiency of propane systems, the propane tank is buried underground, so there are no concerns about groundwater contamination. The independent system is resilient during storms, with generators operating when the power grid goes down. The generator is sized for the number of propane systems in the home that must continue operating during an outage, including space heating, water heating, and stoves.

Custom Builders Build with Propane
Dillard recommends other contractors and builders consider using propane, not only for their clients but for themselves while they’re building. “I think propane is a great choice and that builders should take the time to really consider the alternatives. Customers are looking for more options when it comes to living exactly where they want to. Whether they have a large piece of remote property or they’re living on an island where they can’t get natural gas, they look for alternatives. Propane is the best option for the industry.”

Learn more about propane for custom homes.

The post [SPONSORED] Build Anywhere Without Sacrificing Comfort appeared first on Residential Design.

To honor and extend the legacy of American architect E. Fay Jones, namesake of the School of Architecture and Design, the Legacy Medal is given to esteemed architects who convey Jones’s “spirit of generosity, a dedication to the place and people of his upbringing, deep relationships with his clients and their commissions, and a commitment to the practice and discipline of architecture.”

“I couldn’t hope for a greater honor,” Harmon said. “Fay Jones’s buildings fit their surroundings as comfortably as a bird’s nest in a thicket. He was as gentle and courteous in person as his buildings were in the landscape. I admired him immensely.” 

Harmon, a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, has designed buildings across the southeast for 40 years. Recognized nationally as a leader in modern, sustainable, and regionally appropriate design, his work engages pressing contemporary issues such as placelessness, sustainability, and restoration of cities and nature. 

From small sheds and houses to 70,000-square-foot corporate headquarters and LEED-certified environmental education facilities, his buildings are specific to their sites and use materials to connect them to their landscapes. Harmon’s projects embody the vernacular legacy of the south while maintaining a distinguished modernism. His buildings have been published often and have garnered over 200 design awards. In 2013, he received AIA North Carolina’s highest honor, the Gold Medal for Architectural Design. 

Harmon received an inscribed medal and presented a public lecture at the Fay Jones School on January 27. His lecture emanated from his book Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See.

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