The American Institute of Architects (AIA) & the Home Design Trends Survey
The AIA recently selected Rand Soellner, AIA to be a panelist on the AIA’s HDTS (Home Design Trends Survey). For 5 years, the quarterly AIA residential design trend survey has created press coverage about new house design and residential improvement projects.
The AIA selects HDTS participants “who are design leaders in shaping how homes function, look, and integrate into communities,” according to the AIA. The AIA informed Soellner: “That’s why we need your voice.” The AIA creates the HDTS as a credible and useful housing business resource used by the public and other housing designers nationwide and worldwide. The influence of the contributors is significant in the residential segment of the architectural design world.
Rand Soellner first joined the AIA in 1982, when he became licensed as a registered architect. With 28 years as a licensed design professional, he agreed to assist the AIA’s mission regarding contributing his expertise on issues relating to housing design. “I’ve designed governmental housing, speculative developer residential projects and small, medium and large single family houses for individual families,” said Soellner, “I love what I do and look forward to doing more, and to improving our practice every day, in every way that we can.”
The nation’s residential economy has been hard hit during the recession, and now that the economy is improving and housing starts are increasing, the design world is looking for guidance from those architectural practices recognized as leaders in the residential sector. Soellner’s website, typically listed in the top 2 or 3 Google listings under this category, and with approximately 70,000 website visitors a year, makes his practice popular through public interest.
Soellner, long a designer of large, comfortable estate-class houses, also has been focusing on creating much more compact, more economical, yet livable houses for the new decade. He presently has two in the design phase, one for a family in South Carolina, and another for a larger family from Atlanta. “The secret is to create a house that is small, yet lives big,” said Soellner, “that’s something I do as a matter of course, because I don’t waste a square inch.” Soellner also mentioned focusing his interiors toward views outward and using open planning techniques to create spaces of a size not often seen in even larger projects.
Link to the AIA in Washington, D.C.:
AIA