When life throws you curves, sometimes the best choice is to respond in kind. When Wheeler Kearns’ clients approached the firm with this duplex penthouse apartment, they yearned for the expected benefits of a lofty perch. Instead, the partially framed space was disappointing—denser and darker than it should be, given its position 40…

Washington, D.C., has no shortage of distinguished older houses in lovely, leafy neighborhoods close to downtown. Most are worth saving, as they’re generally well designed and solidly built, with high-quality materials that possess their own embedded value. None, however, is without flaws and quirky irregularities. And when their owners are also distinguished, with…

The tension between pretty good and absolute perfection is something architects must resolve before undertaking any significant remodel. For budget and stewardship reasons, no one wants to change more of an existing structure than is necessary, and the success of any home renovation depends on how well it achieves that before-and-after balance. While…

The RD Architecture Awards recognize excellence in custom residential architectural design. This is a different kind of awards competition that covers the breadth and scope of work by talented residential architects and designers. We recognize that contemporary and contextual projects…

As architecture firms ended 2021 on a high note with strong business conditions, staff recruitment is becoming a growing concern among firms. December’s Architectural Billings Index (ABI) score of 52.0 was an increase from 51.0 in November (any score over 50 indicates billings growth). Despite a variety of concerns…

Home building ended 2021 with strong annual gains as demand accelerated in the wake of the pandemic. These annual gains were realized despite supply-chain limitations for materials and ongoing access issues for labor and lots. Single-family starts ended 2021 with a 13.4% increase for a total of 1.123 million starts. Multifamily 5+ unit…

When he launched ThinkMakeBuild in Washington, D.C., in 2010, Darren Kornas made two decisions that now seem prescient. One was that architects, rather than homeowners, were the clients to chase—a smart, long-range move in a high-wealth region that was on the cusp of a building boom. The second was to use technology to…

EYRC knows its way around iconic modern houses—whether it’s renovating them or designing them from scratch. The firm is also expert in dense, multifamily housing. Applying that breadth of knowledge to the realm of cutting-edge building technology was an obvious next step. In the case of Mighty House, the technology is a synthesis…

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