Residential Architecture: Custom Homes, Additions and Renovations
Most of my work is custom houses, plus additions and renovations to houses that are already good and need to be better. I am a licensed architect with fifteen years in the work, and I draw the sets that get built. The process runs remotely by design, which means the house you are building does not have to be within driving distance of my office for me to be the right architect for it.
Based in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Working throughout the United States through a remote-first process; on site in the Arkansas River Valley, Northwest Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Designed around your day
Before I draw anything, I want to know what a Tuesday looks like in your house. Not the house in the magazine. Yours.
Morning. What time you get up, and whether one of you gets up two hours before the other. Which direction the bedroom faces and where the light lands at six in the morning in June, because that is either the reason you wake up happy or the reason you buy blackout curtains. Whether two people need the bathroom at 6:15, because that is a two-sink, separate-toilet-compartment answer, not a taste question. Then the route to coffee: how many doors, how many turns, and whether it runs past a room you would rather not look at before you are awake.
The kitchen, as it actually gets used. Who cooks. How often. Whether anyone else is in there at the same time, and whether that is company or an obstacle. Where the coffee happens and whether it needs its own three feet of counter that never collects mail. Where the trash goes, where the dog food goes, where the school papers land. Whether weeknight dinner is standing at an island and Sunday is a table, because that changes the plan more than the appliance package does. Island seating is a circulation decision before it is a stool count.
Work. If somebody works from home, that is a room with a door that closes, a wall behind you that is acceptable on video, a place for a printer that is not the dining table, and enough separation that a conference call and a vacuum cleaner can happen in the same hour. If two people work from home, it is two of those, and they cannot share a wall with the laundry.
Kids and pets. Sightlines from the kitchen to wherever the kids actually are, which is rarely the playroom you drew for them. Where homework happens when it is not their bedroom. Where a wet dog gets dealt with in February. Whether the stairs need a gate now and a railing detail that survives it.
Arriving. You pull in with four bags of groceries and a phone under your chin. The distance from the car to the counter where those bags land is a real number and it should be short, flat and out of the weather. That path wants a landing spot for keys, mail, bags and shoes, and it should not be the front hall. Which brings up the split most houses get backwards: guests come to the front door two or three times a year, and you come through the garage or the side door twice a day. Design the door you use every day like it matters, because it does.
Evening. Where you land at eight o’clock. What you are looking at from that seat, and whether the TV, the fireplace and the view are fighting each other for the same wall. Whether the kitchen is visible from it and whether you want it to be.
Storage. Seasonal decorations, sports equipment, luggage, tools, the vacuum, the folding chairs. Every house I have seen that felt cramped had the square footage and did not have the closets. This gets counted in the program, not discovered at move-in.
The porch. Which direction it faces and what time of day you would actually sit on it. Whether it is two chairs and a coffee cup or twelve people and a smoker. Sun, wind and mosquitoes decide more about a porch than the railing detail does.
That conversation is the custom programming. The room list, the square footages and the adjacencies between them come out of your day, in your order, at your scale. It is not a template with your name on the cover sheet. If a room does not earn a place in how you actually live, I will tell you and we will spend the money somewhere it shows up every morning.
What’s included
Site and property review, folded in from Property Research, before the plan is drawn
A programming session that produces the room list and adjacencies from how you actually live
Schematic design: massing, plan options, how the house sits on the land
Design development: real wall assemblies, structure coordinated, windows and doors scheduled
Construction documents: a permit-ready set with plans, sections, details and schedules
Permit submittal and responses to plan review comments
Construction administration: site visits or remote review, submittal and RFI answers, change decisions
How it works
One. We start with the land, not the plan
A lot is a set of constraints before it is an opportunity: setbacks, buildable area, easements, flood zone, utilities, slope. I run that check first because a plan drawn before the site is understood gets redrawn. If you have not closed on the property yet, this is the Property Research service, and it stands on its own.
Two. Programming, then schematic design in options
We do the day walk described above, turn it into a room list, and then you get two or three ways the house could work, drawn to scale, not styled to impress. We talk about where the sun comes from and what the budget can carry. I will tell you plainly when a move costs more than it gives back.
Three. Design development into construction documents
Assemblies get real. Wall sections get drawn to the inch. The set carries the code work with it: egress openings at 5.7 square feet net clear, stairs at a 7 3/4 inch maximum riser and 10 inch minimum tread, ceiling heights at 7 feet minimum, roof ventilation ratios, and IECC envelope numbers for the climate zone your site is actually in, which changes across a single state, let alone across the country.
Four. Permit and construction
I submit, answer plan review, and stay on through construction. Submittals, RFIs, change decisions. The value of an architect during construction is that somebody who knows what the drawing meant is available when the framer has a question at 7 a.m.
Where I work
The process is remote-first and has been from the start. Consultations happen over video with the drawings on screen. Drawing sets are delivered digitally, in the formats your builder and your building department want. Your contractor gets me by phone or video, with the sheet open in front of both of us, which in practice is faster than waiting for a Thursday site visit. For projects in the Arkansas River Valley, Northwest Arkansas and Oklahoma, I come to the site. Anywhere else in the country, site coverage is scoped up front: either scheduled trips built into the fee, or a local set of eyes we agree on before construction starts.
On licensure
I am licensed in Arkansas. For a project in another state, licensure and reciprocity are confirmed for your specific project before anything is drawn, and where that state requires it, I coordinate with a local architect of record. You will know exactly how your project is covered before you sign anything.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an architect for this project?
It depends on the project, not the zip code. A straightforward bathroom remodel with no structural or code change usually does not need one. A new house, an addition that touches structure or the roof, a kitchen that moves walls or plumbing stacks, anything that changes egress, and anything on a difficult site all benefit from one, and many of them require a stamped set depending on the jurisdiction. Requirements vary by building department, and I check yours before you spend anything. Send me the address and a description of what you want to do and you will get a straight answer, including "you do not need me for this."
Can you work with a builder I already have?
Yes, and it usually goes better that way. Bring your builder into design development and we price real assemblies instead of guessing, which means the number at bid is closer to the number at closeout. What the builder gets from this process specifically is a set drawn around decisions that have already been made: the room list came out of your day, not a plan book, so the questions that normally surface during framing were answered on paper. Your builder is not guessing where the coffee counter outlet goes, why the mudroom bench is 6 feet and not 4, or why the pantry door swings the way it does. I write the set so a contractor can build from it, which is a different document than a set written to look good in a presentation.
Do you have to come to my site?
Not for most of the work. Design, drawings and coordination all happen remotely, and that is the normal case, not the exception. Site presence matters at a handful of moments, and we plan those in advance. If your project is in the Arkansas River Valley, Northwest Arkansas or Oklahoma, I am on site for those moments as a matter of course. Outside that region, we decide up front how site coverage gets handled and put it in the agreement, so nobody is improvising in the middle of framing.
How the Work Goes
Most people call us before they know what they are buying, which is the right time to call. Our residential process runs in five stages, from analyzing the land you own through choosing a drawing set, walking the house in 3D before it exists, and having someone on site who knows the drawings while it gets built. The full walkthrough covers what happens at each stage, what you get, and what it costs.