House and Home Magazine is south Louisiana's original home-and-garden magazine, with free circulation in the greater Baton Rouge and Lafayette areas. Published monthly since 1997 by Renaissance Publishing Group, LLC, House and Home's readers have enjoyed more than 100 full-color issues that celebrate the finest expression of south Louisiana style, design, culture and living. In April 2010, the Nauck's house was awarded a publication in House and Home's kitchen design awards issue. In May 2010, House and Home would further recognize the Nauck house with an entry in their best-in-show, "whole house" publication. Finally, in November 2010, in celebration of the magazine's 13th year, two of the Nauck house photos were acknowledge as the staff's top thirteen favorite images.

As a problem solving exercise, this project presented a plethora of challenges. The homeowners had never gone through the design process before taking on this project. The couple had only lived in two houses since they were first married. They wanted the new house to follow cultural traditions from their home country that would heavily influence design decisions, called Vastu Shastra, but they still wanted to have all the amenities of a middle class American home. Thankfully the clients were willing to go through the full design process instead of jumping straight into making construction drawings which so often seems to be the case. Using a collection of photographs to develop an aesthetic palette, our design process explored massing options in plan and in elevation that would evolve into the final floor plans. Some 3d modeling was also used to offer some pre-visualizations of the built home.

Photos of the house without the watermark are so expensive. I'l post them as soon as I can spring for them. For now, you can review the proofs with me.

What separates a good home designer from the less savvy is their ability to create a home that provides more than just shelter conforming to neighborhood restrictions. Those who live in such subdivisions usually want a spacious home that has a look and feel they think their neighbors and visitors will appreciate. Sometimes the need to meet this goal results in people duplicating a building they had seen somewhere else, without considering their own unique needs and dictates of their property. The Perde family contacted me with the intent of rebuilding the Mindrut house on their property, which was a few lots down from the Mindrut’s home. Clearly the neighborhood review board would not allow that to happen. So, once the Perdes were convinced not to rebuild someone else’s house, we were able to begin designing a house for them.

The business of building and supplying swimming pools is an interesting one for a designer. Some people are happy picking out a fiberglass mold from a magazine or website and then surrounding it with landscaping to create their backyard oasis. Other people can get a custom pool built by on-site. Some of these custom pool builders provide high-design pools built specifically for that location while other builders are content to rebuild the same “better than average” pools repeatedly. Serenity Pools in Baton Rouge, falls somewhere between those two operations. On occasion they would contract me to design custom pools for their more difficult to sell clients. Swimming pools do not typically require a permit so owners will pursue all sorts of interesting designs. Couple that freedom with southern Louisiana’s climate and a growing trend of houses with outdoor kitchens and rooms and my role as a home designer moves into the backyard.

At the beginning of the project, the owners did not plan to implement any major changes in the layout, like moving or removing and walls. They mostly wanted to talk about installing new cabinets and instituting minor changes in the layout of the cabinets. There main goal was to update and brighten the kitchen. Mr. Chatelain, a weekend DIY warrior, would contract the project himself, so I had to take that into consideration. By implementing small, but effective design decisions, this renovation project would ultimately retire the classic isolated kitchen form for the Chatelain family.

If designing a house for my self is the first reason I went to architecture school, designing a house for my father is definitely the second. When my uncle’s residential contractor company, HCH, acquired several acres to develop, I told my dad to ask for the most difficult parcel available. The lot we had was surrounded by two ponds, two massive live oak trees, and an 18’ drop in slope right where the house should go. After hundreds of yards of dirt were added and we met over lots of dinners, we settled on a ‘C’ shaped house that would terrace the landscape. Using collaged drawings and diagrams, and a constantly changing 3d model, the finished design takes full advantage of the beautiful landscape on all sides. The house took almost a year to build but our efforts paid off; the house has been published in local residential design magazines and won my uncle’s contracting company, HCH, a local builder’s award.

In spring 2008, Lamar Advertising decided to relocate its existing corporate headquarters to 5321 Corporate Boulevard, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A renovation project, 5321 Corporate is conceived as a transformation from heavy, impenetrable brutalism to strength, grace, movement, and optimism. The existing 115,000 square foot facility would need to be renovated to accommodate all current Lamar corporate employees and allow for reasonable future growth. The interior design would foster an open work environment with a variety of multipurpose meeting rooms and communal areas. Even the executive offices and conference rooms would be located in the same general vicinity as the conventional office space. Central to the clients’ design requirements, the design would need to be neat and unassuming. Ford|Dickinson’s proposal sought to smooth out a shift in the urban grid.

Woman’s Hospital has been proudly bursting at the seams for some time at its current location in the center of Baton Rouge. With the eastern expansion of the city and the development of the I-10 Interstate system after 2006, Woman’s Hospital decided to move their beloved campus to a new location capable of providing the experience their customers expect, and the care the growing community needs. Their vision is to provide a state-of-the-art facility approximately 5 miles from the current campus. The new campus is located on the corner of Airline Highway and Pecue Lane. The goal was to create a new hospital that will be aesthetically pleasing, technologically advanced, and focused on an exceptional patient experience. Ford|Dickinson partnered with HKS, out of the Dallas/Ft.Worth area, to design the new campus. F|D would be responsible for the design of the public spaces, patient rooms, and other hospitality areas.

In the fall of 2007, Lamar Outdoor Advertising and Ford|Dickinson began development of a series of new advertising structures that would incorporate new digital display technologies. It was thought that these new designs would increase public acceptance, and therefore expand the market for placement of these outdoor advertising structures. These new designs would improve the aesthetic appearance of outdoor advertising structures, work in concert with existing support systems, and provide an economical ‘kit of parts’ that can be delivered, installed, and maintained easily throughout the United States. The design process led to the development of four general-concept families with multiple variations that would fulfill those concepts. These conceptual designs were thoroughly illustrated at a temporary online hub where RFP recipients and members of the client body could download documentation about the project.