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INTERIOR DESIGN
The Family Villa
This is the story of a family and their journey of home. The father, an architect, set out to design a home where his family, and their community will gather as the children grow and one day have children of their own; The Family Villa, one to be passed down from generation to generation. The challenge, how to infuse a new build with soul? You give it a story. When I sat down with my architect client he revealed the story he created around the deign of this house. It goes like this…
There was an original estate on the property, The Main House. Over time the family grew and rooms were added, arches pierced through thick walls to open passages to the adjacent structures. Each addition happening over time and by the next generation. The house, a record of that timeline embracing quirky, unexpected details and all the charm of a Spanish-Style Villa built by multiple generations in the southern sunshine.
Client
Kirby Family
Architecture, Interior Architecture & Construction
DixonKirby Co.
Location
Wooded Site Raleigh, North Carolina
Scope
Whole-home Interior Furnishings
PART ONE
Discover
The approach to the site is unassuming. There are trees, shrubs and the expected, lush greenery of a North Carolina landscape. An opening signals a change in direction and a clearing is punctuate by a mature Japanese Maple, a flame in the otherwise verdant landscape.
This forms the basis for discovery of place and the meaning of home for a family of six longing to live in harmony with nature.
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When I met the clients they were reimagining their existing home in the heart of a Raleigh neighborhood filled with charm and history. We connected on a shared love of architecture and family life. With four children entering new stages, they were eager to update the interior of the home they had lovingly built over time. The following year, when they were ready to build a family villa from the ground up, they reach out to me to once again make their dream of comfortable, approachable interiors a reality.
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At the heart of project is a deep rooted value system centered around family and community. The clients share their home regularly with their close community and they value a home that is a welcome haven for everyone they love.
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When you work with a homeowner who is also the architect, you quickly realize that intentionality is already present in the every detail of the design. A Japanese maple tree on the site inspired the U-shaped plan centered around it’s bright red canopy. This instantly ties the home to the site and infuses everything with it’s history.
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The scope was defined from the start with a focus on the main level living and gathering spaces as well as primary bedroom. The children’s bedrooms were folded into the scope to ensure consistency and a cohesive feel for the interiors.
Budget was established as a set of priorities, with Family Living Spaces and the Central Dining Room at the top of the list.
1.3 INITIAL CONNECTIONS TO SITE
1.3 FIGURE GROUND MAP
PHASE TWO
Ideate
The Main House is intended to hold the story of generations past, a hint of the old evident in the vintage oil painting, tattered tapestry and carved wooden artifacts. These remind us of our place in the history of family. The elements of the landscape, earth, clay, bark, and sky ground us in the present, their ribald beauty immediate and comforting.
Passage through an arched portal is a voyage through time leading to new textures and shapes influenced by modernity, the interior design a living timeline.
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It is through the vehicle of storytelling that design begins. This story unique in place and time but connected to a greater story of family, specific yet universal. A poem emerges alongside a conceptual statement and diagram.
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The parents in the background build a home for the next generation. Their hope, to ground their children in community while giving them wings to fly.
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A deep dive into Spanish Colonial architecture leads to understand of how the interiors will dovetail with the architecture. This home is a modern interpretation of a classic style and the interiors alsol tell that story.
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To tell the story of the home we begin with the objects that will be in the home, their story becomes the home’s story influencing the family’s understanding of themselves.
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The sketching process begins the translation of words and diagrams to solutions. Plans, elevations and perspective sketches are used to study the ideas in space. The central dining room was the generative space for the project and so beginning here, scale and proportion are studied in perspective.
2.1 A NARRATIVE OF BELONGING
2.2 THE KIRBYS
2.3 RESEARCH ROOTED IN FAMILY
Family connectedness lies at the heart of this home. A deep-dive gets to the specifics of this connection for this family as well as reflects on our shared human experience.
2.1 A CONCEPT OF GENERATIONAL GROWTH
2.4 PROJECT MOODBOARD
2.5 SKETCH EXPLORATIONS
The dining table sits at the crossroads of the home, the point where public and private spaces interlock. The desire is for an active space rather than the traditional passive dining room.
“GATHER HERE”, a reminder to take a pause from the industrious nature of our lives.
PHASE THREE
Develop
Each choice is considered in the context of the values established at the start of the project. How do room layouts encourage family connection? Which fabrics promote a sensory relationship to nature?
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To test the initial concept, the design is digitized and refined. Plans, elevations and 3D renderings take shape and validate the initial assumptions.
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Intentional design invites collaborations with other designers and makers. For this project a few key furniture pieces were needed to bridge the gap between vintage and new.
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More refinement and feedback from the client is essential to the design process. With each development, drawings and visualizations are created to validate the decisions.
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The moment when the design proposal is complete is monumental. Months of hard work culminate in a presentation to the client followed by a period for feedback and revisions.
3.1 TESTING
Layout, palette, selections; there are infinite possibilities. The aim is to respect the work of the previous phases while delighting in the revelation of what was previously unknowable.
3.2 COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIPS
Key collaborators bring bespoke elements to the project rooting it in intentionality. Vintage Mediterranean pots for a welcoming front stoop, a reinterpreted Windsor Bench for the foyer signals to a visitor that they are welcome to stay a while, and hand crafted chairs made from tactile linen in the sitting room remind you that the natural world is just outside.
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Custom furniture makers in Vermont, Nick and Erin English craft beautiful, bespoke pieces rooted in traditional furniture making techniques and forms but reinterpreted with thoughtful details. For this project a reinterpreted Windsor Bench and Custom Pedestal Table will bring warmth and story to the home.
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Dimyr, the owner and curator at Nomadic Trading Company travels the world in search of unique objects that carry with them the story of time and place. His extensive knowledge of each item helps to relay the story to the client and into the home. Vintage Mediterranean pots were sourced to bring history and patina to the interiors.
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A Belgian furniture designer and maker crafting intentional pieces in the heart of North Carolina brings a modern sensibility to tradition. Exquisite, sustainable fabrics each stitch applied by hand to individually designed frames is why a partnership felt right for this project. A pair of chairs sourced for the sitting room bring a sculptural modernity to the space.
3.4 THE DESIGN PRESENTATION
To share a fully formed thought with clarity is imperative. As the design becomes refined, so do the modes of representation.
Plans, elevations, technical drawings, renderings and selections pages break down the elements of the design into executable components while revealing the design as a wholistic concept.
PART FOUR
Implement
To implement a design is to bring it out of the drawing and into the real world. Every details accounted for, each piece of furniture, object, and detail purchased, delivered and placed according to the plan, and sometimes changed on site to align with what is longed for in real time. The light coming through the oversized window needs an object with rounded contours to land on, the deeply shadowed corner calls for a pool of light not previously planned for. With the initial concept firmly established each move is considered and executed.
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Translating an idea to the physical world is an act of balance and priorities. There is a process of checking in with the values as they relate to the budget established at the start of the project. Which pieces of furniture, art, decor occupy a place of more or less value in the home? Recalling that the main living spaces and dining room are the heart of the home, a concerted effort is made to put the most value here.
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Relationships with vendors is crucial to a successful project. Working with key partners who’s values match that of the project meant prioritizing North Carolina based furniture makers.
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A team is assembled to bring the design vision to life. Movers, drapery specialist, art installer, etc, all converge on the home ready to come to life. Every details is considered.
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Every detail, every object placed with intention and quality. If anything feels out of place it gets moved and changed.
4.3 INSTALLATION
A team is assembled to bring the design vision to life. Movers, drapery specialist, and art installer, all converge on the home ready to come to life. Every details is considered.
