Thankful for beautiful project sites

I am grateful for beautiful construction sites.  One of the perks of my job is working on my client’s beautiful properties.  Ranch properties, river front properties, and lake house properties are the starting point of some incredible design adventures.  My clients love the land they have been blessed with and its an indescribable privilege to come alongside them to create a “picture frame” to experience the land their home sits on.  I’m thankful to be able to work on these sites.  It’s one thing to visit a beautiful place for a few hours, but as my client’s architect I have the double privilege of being able to return to the site several times. And with the M.U.D. (a.k.a. the Mobile Unit for Design) I’m able to work several consecutive days on these wonderful sites.  I may never own one of these beautiful chunks of God’s creation, but designing homes to experience these lovely places is the next best thing.

Working in the M.U.D.

I thank God for the M.U.D. For years I dreamed of a mobile studio that would allow me work on site where our client’s project were to be built.  The idea first arose when working as a Project Architect at Overland Partners.  At the time they had several projects for the National Park Service.  Overland was commissioned to design visitor centers and other buildings on beautiful, but extremely remote sites.  Traveling to the project sites took days leaving only a short time to get to know the land.  In addition, the trips were extremely costly and only allowed a few visits to the project site during the course of the design process.  When I worked at Lake | Flato I observed the same problem on the many ranch houses they designed.  When I came back to my own architecture practice I determined to make this dream a reality and in 2019 our firm purchased it’s first Mobile Unit for Design….a.k.a the M.U.D. It has turned out to be such a blessing.  During COVID it was a remote studio and I located it in the woods like Henry David Thoreau’s cabin in Walden. I’ve parked it for a few days on project sites allowing me to experience my client’s properties from sunrise to sunset. The M.U.D. allows me to observe the path of the sun, the prevailing breezes, and consider the best views to frame with the house’s design.  It has been a place of retreat like Le Corbusier’s Cabanon or Glen Murcutt’s remote studio. Every artist needs their studio to focus.  Most recently it was the job trailer that allowed me to be on site as I managed the renovation of Lazarus House. It’s truly a dream come true.