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.
As I drove past bland house after bland house, I realized that most homeowners did not know there was another option. They were only being shown the giant columns, windowless walls, and cathedral ceilings. If they only had access to the design principles that I used every day, we’d start seeing fewer McMansions and more high-quality homes with character, perfectly suited to the lives of their inhabitants.
The inspiration for what became a best-selling book series was born that day, and in 1998, the first in that series—The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live—was published, to almost immediate acclaim. Within a few months of its release, I was on The Oprah Winfrey Show, which catapulted me out of my architectural practice and into the life of a celebrated writer and public speaker.
https://susanka.com/where-it-all-began/
