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KHS architecture and design featured in The New Cottage.
This Christmas season, snap up a copy of The New Cottage from The Taunton Press for the cottage/design fan in your life! Find The New Cottage on Amazon or at a bookstore near you. And while you’re at it, also consider giving them The New Small House from The Taunton Press, the perfect complement, to more than double your gift impact. Find The New Small House on Amazon or at a bookstore near you.
Merry, merry!
by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast
If you’re lucky enough to find yourself on Martha’s Vineyard this fall, look for my upcoming book The New Cottage from The Taunton Press on page five of The Vine Fall Home and Garden 2018 issue. Three Vineyard cottages (and 21 others from across North America) are featured in the book, so pre-order your copy today ;-)
by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast
I didn't go scouting for this Design snapshot, it comes straight from our own small house, our cottage. It all started several years ago with my husband's desire for a screen door on our side entrance. At the time, I wanted to ponder what design the screen door might take. But I couldn't escape the fact that no matter how delightful a thoughtfully designed screen door might be, it would be leading to an existing unsightly steel-and-glass door installed by the previous owner. So the project sat on the back burner percolating.
Then this past fall/winter while working on my upcoming book The New Cottage from the Taunton Press, I looked anew at a photo of a sunny Dutch door entrance on one of the featured cottages in a pocket neighborhood designed by Ross Chapin Architects. A light bulb went off. I remembered the original 32-inch wide wood-and-glass side door that the previous owner had stored in the garage when they replaced it with the code-conforming 36-inch wide steel-and-glass side door that I found lacking. Why not modify the original wood-and-glass door to become a 36"-inch wide Dutch door worthy of a new screen door?
Voilà. The newly reconfigured Dutch door is a versatile joy. It offers window-like ventilation when the upper portion is open and door-like separation when the bottom half is closed. Since the Dutch door itself is the primary feature, the screen/storm door design is as simple as possible so as not to obscure or detract from the main event. (The exterior color is "Magnet" from C2 Paint.)
Is there an old wooden door with character in your garage? Maybe it's worth transforming into a Dutch door? There's something so fun and friendly about a Dutch door.
by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast
"Design Thinking" has been a hot topic for quite some time now. Many of us in the architecture and design fields have been a tad irked to see our process co-opted by enterprises focused on monetizing "user experience" and the like. So I was heartened to discover the different angle that Providence's DownCity Design has taken. Follow the link to explore their design-thinking toolkit for the classroom: "The Change Agent." And here's a video about it.
According to the DownCity Design website, "The Change Agent Toolkit is a set of fun, hands-on learning activities that guide groups of students through the Design Thinking Cycle. It's like a game that helps kids tackle any challenge they've identified, in any subject. The free web-based resource includes everything an educator needs to lead students through the design process."
It's a great example of design thinking put to work to generate a classroom learning tool for the design-thinking process. Very meta. Bravo!
by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast
