Monday, January 25, 2016

The Beginning of Something Big

Hello World.
I'm Alison, and I am building a home.
It is in Durham, a town I grew up in that is very near and dear to my heart. I tried leaving Durham once, but my roots called me back after only a year.
Now I am endeavoring to lay down more permanent and personal roots near downtown by creating a home there.
To start with I am building a house with the help of some very talented people.
My architects are Tina Govan of Tina Govan Architect and Jason Hart of Cube Design + Research.
My builder is Bob Woupio of Form Design Build.

My thoughts around what I wanted and design included a home that I could entertain in, raise a family in and grow old in. Tina and Jason helped to turn those desires, along with how I live my life day-to-day and how I relate to my environment into an incredible design. I will probably go in depth into each of these notions in future posts, however I will touch upon some of them briefly here.

Location location location. The land I was lucky enough to find and purchase is in the Cleveland Holloway neighborhood of Durham.  It is within walking distance of downtown, Durham Central Park, and the Golden Belt. I can bike to the Durham CoOp. It is also a neighborhood that has a lot of history and historical buildings. We aren't going to pretend we are building an historic home. It is a modern design, and will look like something build in 2016. However Tina and Jason we're very invested in the feeling of the neighborhood and wanted this house to be in keeping with that feeling. There are a lot of elements of the house that are pulled from the designs of homes around it.  When all is said and done it will be a modern home that is in keeping with the feel and form of the neighborhood.

Primarily it is a house that will be lived in. And a lot of thought was put into keeping all activities of daily living in a serene space.

Home is where the heart is, but hearth is where the home is. I love to cook, and the kitchen is truly the heart of any home. In this house the kitchen is a focal space that is open and accessible. I am uber excited about this.

Integration of the Outside and Inside.  Living in the south I love the outdoors. Things like listening to crickets and cicadas on hot summer nights, cooking out on the grill or smoker, playing horse shoes or croquette in the yard and simply just porch sitting as twilight rolls in. With this in mind the house has lots of doors that can be opened to integrate the indoor space with the outdoor space.

We all get older. The house is also being built with an eye towards aging and the needs that may arise as I get older. I don't want to "age out" of my home.


After over a year of design work we broke ground in December 2015.
Jason put together this amazing cad video of the house design.




 So I welcome you to join me in this endeavor and follow along as I create a home.

Thank you for reading,
Alison

4 comments:

  1. What a great adventure Alison! Thanks for including us.

    ReplyDelete
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