How Home Design can Affect your Quality of Life

Home Design and Quality of Life

Ever wonder if home design has an affect on the quality of your life? Or how to express the value of design to your clients?  Or how to handle clients that want “cheaper” less effective designs?  Do you educate them or let them move along? I always find myself asking these questions, almost to the point that they keep me up at night.

In a lot of organizations, design is undervalued because it can be difficult to measure its impact.  Naturally, companies know through sales when a product or service is successful, but how much analysis is done to measure the extent to which these results can be attributed to design?

The term “design” is often misunderstood because it includes disciplines ranging from architecture, engineering, interiors, product and industrial design, to fashion and textiles, graphics, and exhibitions. What is common to all these forms of design is that they involve creating concepts, plans and instructions, usually in response to a brief provided by a firm or client that enables a two or three dimensional object that did not exist previously to be made.  Everything from a building to wallpaper has to be designed and the design of the object is the specific configuration of elements, materials and components that give it its particular attributes of function, looks etc. and determine how it is to be made. You can see this is the modern design of our Angle House.

Investing 10% in design to ensure that the other 90% is a success is a small price to pay.

This requires a shift in thinking from regarding design as a soft service function to a cornerstone of business strategy. Cost-of ownership studies agree that the first cost only accounts for around 10 percent of all costs a building owner will spend over the life of the building.  The other 90 percent comes in the form of operation and maintenance.

Finally, design is an excellent channel for risk taking and for rapidly pushing the barriers of an organization.  Failure can occur quickly in the design stage, but in most cases the designer(s) will “fail forward” – with the mistake leading to significant progress, allowing the team to succeed sooner.  One of the most powerful components of design is that people form fast relationships and responses to it, positive and negative.  It is amazing how quickly cross-departmental teams can discard a design because it isn’t quite working.  This in turn enables them to move the ball forward and close the gap between the idea and the successful product/service.  Design should therefore be viewed as a fast prototyping method that simultaneously raises the level of innovation within an organization and helps create a culture that achieves success quickly.

Get The Most From Your Home Design With AV Architects + Builders

No matter what you are looking for in the home of your dreams, you can trust AV Architects + Builders in Northern VA to handle your entire project for you. We provide expertise in modern home design that is fully-functional and aligns with your lifestyle needs to ensure the best quality of life possible. Our team will work together with you each step of the way to give you the home you have always wanted. Contact Us to schedule a consultation with our team and build your dream home today!