“Can I Quote You on That?”

Architecture — Log home design, Timber Frame design, Hampton style, Mountain Contemporary, Cottage and “Up North” style, to name a few of what we do; it’s quite the portfolio. The varied styles are as varied as our clients. Those clients all carry a “White Cedar dream home” in their minds, a long list of “I have to haves” in their notepads and a mind numbingly huge photo idea assemblage; it is up to us to put that jigsaw puzzle together and design, not just a house, but a home. It’s about a look. It’s about a feel. It’s about a feeling. Volumes have been written on the subject, from broad design greats as Francis D. K. Ching’s Architecture: Form, Space, and Order, to a favorite log home design specific reference, Teipner and Theide’s The Log Home Book, to the hundreds of trade journal articles – “Log Home Plan Favorites”, “Timber Frame Design Basics”, “Outdoor Kitchen Dos and Don’ts”, “Mountain Home Decorating Style”, and on and on. Many thoughts, many ideas… many opinions. And you know that old saying about opinions…

This is a blog after all, so, rather than pen a 100,000 word essay on those broad opinions, let’s narrow it down to a few of our guiding philosophies and hear it from some of our favorite heavy hitters. Everybody loves a good quote…

“No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other.”

…Frank Lloyd Wright

“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.”

…Frank Gehry

“I don’t think that architecture is only about shelter, is only about a very simple enclosure. It should be able to excite you, to calm you, to make you think.”

…Zaha Hadid

“Architecture is about experience: not only visual but also what you can touch, what you can feel.”

…Ma Yansong

“They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.”

…Henry David Thoreau

“To create architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Function and objects.”

…Le Corbusier

“Less is only more where more is no good.”

…Frank Lloyd Wright

“A good designer designs something that looks good.
A better designer designs something that looks good and has a certain feel.
A rare designer designs something that looks good, has a certain feel, but also gives the client a very certain, specific, personal feeling.”

…Town + Country Cedar Homes