We believe each client - individual, couple, family, or company - is most qualified to design his own home, workspace, or retail store by virtue of his knowledge of himself and his needs.

As Architect and Systems Engineer, we bring more than 30 years of experience listening to people and asking the right questions (Programming), and clearly presenting the most appropriate design options (Schematic Design) enabling our clients to visualize their dreams and make fully-informed decisions.

We then describe this vision in dollars and drawings our clients can understand. "Second thoughts" are encouraged at this stage (Design Development) so that most revisions are made prior to spending the bulk of our time - and your money - producing our finished product - the information necessary for contractors to build your vision.    Once the final design is agreed upon, we prepare all necessary structural engineering, Title 24 state energy calculations, and architectural drawings and notes (Contract Documents) required to obtain a building permit. Architects are not usually responsible for structural engineering and energy calculation of their structures. However, by controlling these critical aspects of the design, we provide our clients with more economical, better-integrated buildings more quickly and for less money. Finally, we assist our clients through the Permit Approval process by working with planning and building department staff and making presentations to Design Review Boards, Planning Commissions and City Councils. We consistently obtain permit approvals in many Bay Area counties and municipalities.    We are very experienced in the Bidding, and Construction phases of the project. We work well with traditional general contractors, construction managers, as well as owner-builders. We bring construction deficiencies to the attention of our clients promptly during construction, when changes can be made at the least expense.     Linda and Jim gave a public presentation of their work on 11 January 2001 at a meeting of the AASCC, Architects' Association of Santa Cruz County. The following notes formed the basis of their verbal presentation and were accompanied by over 300 slides of their work. The presentation was very well attended and also well received. Jim is currently expanding the list of design patterns and preparing drawings to visually explain each pattern. Please email us with your reactions and any questions or ideas you may have concerning these patterns. We would like to publish a little design book and would really appreciate your thoughts.   Current Bay Area Architecture It's very sad that international travelers are told by our local architectural critics and Sunday Home section editors that the ugly, disjointed, broken, truncated, warped masses of disparate colors you can find in San Francisco represent the best of current Bay Area Architecture. The media find them interesting and different. They point to them as being "art", not just building, in that they are a reflection of our dysfunctional society. This is the furthest thing from the truth. In recent years, the Bay Area has benefited from an economic boom created by Silicon Valley's computer industry much as Venice benifited from the economic boom created by new trade with the far east in the fifteenth century. We have designed thousands of luxurious private homes in the rolling hills which surround San Francisco Bay just as Andrea Palladio and his contemporaries designed luxurious villas on the mainland near Venice. Just as in Palladio's time, these luxurious private homes have many features in common. However, their main characteristic is a sense of beauty and comfort that makes coming home relaxing and psychologically healing. We have been fortunate to have designed over 100 homes, many of them luxurious and all of them elegant. We have developed stylistic traits which are shared by most of these homes and which by no means do we claim to have invented. In fact, we see these same design patterns in many of the homes designed by our peers. For the most part, these homes have been designed from the inside out. Bedrooms and baths have sought quiet and privacy, while living rooms have been arranged to optimize sun orientation and views. The exterior elevations have been developed for beauty, balance, and harmony after the interior plan has been established. We have tried to mimic the format of one of my favorite books, Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language, by defining individual design patterns that are common to most of our homes. Some of these patterns were preferences developed in childhood, some have been borrowed from designers we worked with along the way, and some were discovered in programming sessions with our clients. Of course there are many more to be defined. Enjoy.   Design Patterns Of Quintessential Forms, Architects A Disclaimer : There are many ways to approach the design of a home. We recognize that most of these ideas are ancient timeless aspects of good design. However, they are our design patterns as well and have created so much pleasure for so many of our clients that we just want to state them again here for all to see and understand. Pattern #1. Symmetry and alignment. "Beauty of form arising from balanced proportions." Symmetry is the most important pattern because it brings peace and harmony to all interior living spaces. It creates complete whole spaces with nothing broken, truncated, or warped. Alignment includes creating visual end-stops along centerlines of arches and vistas, and vertically aligning stacks of windows to create a restful balance in the room. Pattern #2. No lines down the middle. This pattern helps make each room feel larger by placing odd numbers of windows and panes within the window, and even numbers of columns to preserve a feeling of release instead of confinement, and of wholeness instead of division. We live in a world of duality where we are constantly forced to choose. We relax when we are in a room which is unified instead of divided. Pattern #3. Blending indoors to outdoors. This is the first of three important patterns having to do with the importance of gentle gradual transitions in every direction. Elegance and grace are not abrupt and hard. Using the same, or similar, floor materials inside to out. Creating outdoor rooms as a means of easing transition from inside to out, especially where floor area is limited and lot coverage is not. Extending exterior building walls outside to become low garden walls or having stone steps disappear for a while and then reappear on the other side of the lawn like a serpent's tail on a lake's surface. Pattern #4. The "Egyptian Entry Sequence" or sequential enclosure. A subtle, elegant, graceful way of slowly and progressively enfolding the entrant prior to his breaking the plane of the front door. You don't have to tell your clients this method was developed for entrance to the Pharaohs' tombs. First you define the walkway, then a low wall on one side, then the other, then the first wall increases in height, then the other, then there is a roof, then a turn and you are inside. Pattern #5. Front entry porches. Front porches serve three primary purposes. First, they make it very clear where the front door is by celebrating the entry with a warm welcome for guests. Second, they provide a welcome shelter from the elements while waiting for the doorbell to be answered. And third, they provide a transitional space between the semi-public front yard and the private interior of the home - another transitional space, where kids can swing on the porch and say "hi" to their neighbors while remaining in a psychologically safe place. This is an important way to build community spirit. Too many of us today insulate ourselves from our neighbors and our community by living in the backyard. Pattern #6. High open ceilings. Higher than expected and generally not level, especially coffered or vaulted, ceilings relax people by breaking the 8-foot flat-ceilinged box they are stuck in most of their lives. On upper floors, it's easy to use open rafter framing or scissor trusses to provide this valued relief. It is more difficult on the ground floor where you must decide which rooms require vaulted ceilings and then design the upper floor to cover only those rooms which do not need to be vaulted. Symmetry and gentle transition are important on ceilings as well. Be careful not to create any acute angles where ridges hit vertical walls. It's always better to balance actual roof pitches with false framing to match. Pattern #7. Lots of glass. Another means of relaxing people is breaking the box of modern life by taking first floor sill heights down to 24 inches from the floor (not too close to the 18-inch tempered glass requirement) and up to within 12 inches of the plate height, repeating windows in an odd-numbered rhythm, and often filling the wall with windows to expand the room into the landscape. Of course, this is also important in that it provides natural light throughout the house which is physically and psychologically healthy and saves energy by daylighting. Pattern #8. No hallways. Space is too precious to waste any of it and simple corridors are a big waste of space. It is much better to allow circulation to pass through larger rooms, or widen what would normally be a narrow corridor to become a usable room or "loft" or "overlook", perfect for creating a quiet reading alcove or a homework center or a computer desk. Pattern #9. Storage walls. Don't just construct partitions, create "fat" walls with storage units on at least one side and better yet both sides. Closets, cabinets, bookshelves, and open display shelves can be nested or back-to-back. Another benefit of this pattern is that it creates a "Medieval" feeling of solidity because you pass through what appear to be three-foot thick walls instead of six-inch thick partitions. This thickness also provides a great opportunity to locate three steps up or down for floor height transitions. By creating barrel-vaulted ceilings in these thick openings between rooms you increase the solid feeling of the wall. Rectangular openings tend to define ends of the wall. Pattern #10. Separation of service spaces. The next two patterns work together to separate the living spaces from the necessary services that must be convenient but need not be ugly. Hiding the coat closet and powder room doors under a stair landing or in small vestibules between living rooms created by pattern #9. A sense of elegance with clutter out of the way. Pattern #11. No stairs in the foyer. Stairs are service spaces like garages, powder rooms, and coat closets. Stairways connect the most private downstairs area of the house, the family/breakfast area, with the private upstairs bedrooms. The kind of "hollywood" grand staircases we remember from Gone with the Wind, the one's your daughter walks down for her first date or wedding just don't make sense any more. When the best reason to place stairs in the foyer is so you at least look at your expensive unused formal living and dining rooms, it's time to get rid of them. Pattern #12. Driveway down the side to a rear garage. With garage doors and the large paved areas required for autocourts really being service areas, why not hide them behind the building? This makes sense when you consider that the formal living and dining rooms are most likely to be facing the street, while the kitchen/breakfast/family room is often open to the private rear yard. A rear-yard garage would be next to the kitchen. A rear garage can also provide a visual shield from ugly or higher-elevated neighbors or strong prevailing winds. Pattern #13. Two-story foyers. Creating a dramatic first impression, two-story foyers have exactly the desired effect of making the entrant stop when first entering the building. Two-story foyers allow for a very bright space with high clerestorey windows and often an overlooking balcony adding to the romance of the home both from below and above. This pattern provides natural ventilation and cooling and further energy conservation. Pattern #14. The perfect Master Suite. Obviously, this is not for everyone. But it does seem to have almost universal appeal. From the house, you approach double entry doors through an arched entry vestibule and open the door into an entry foyer from which you can either continue straight ahead through a wide high archway into a sitting area with a raised fireplace, bookshelves, and a 5080 in-swing french door to a shallow wrought-iron balcony with the best view. As you enter the sitting area, you can turn around toward the french doors and see the bed itself is placed out of sight from the entryway with a wide, deep, arched soffit overhead creating a cozy romantic setting. Or, from the entry foyer, you could enter directly into the dressing room with a romantic window seat, tailor mirrors, and a built-in dresser which leads you back into large walk-in closet with iron and layout area. Or, from the foyer, you could enter the master bath with its high clerestorey windows and possibly a skylight over the shower which gives both visual privacy and plenty of light ( a Moorish feeling). Pattern #15. Historical exterior stylings. Relaxing people by giving them something they have seen before - something they can feel peaceful with. It could be any style as long as they feel comfortable when picturing their home in their mind's eye - feeling this is their place, their personal image of "home."