Where it all began

In the mid-1990s, when I’d been working as a residential architect for more than a decade, I had an epiphany one day while driving though the suburbs of Des Moines, Iowa. I had started noticing that new houses were getting extremely large, and decidedly unattractive. For miles and miles, all I could see were these “starter castles” marching across the prairies, looking self-important and soulless.

At that point, I was spending most of my time designing homes that were better, not bigger; homes that fit the way my clients really lived, rather than a formal lifestyle that few people ever lived anymore. But in that moment, I realized…