Home Designers & Architects: Small, Medium & Large Houses

Large, Medium & Small House Designs, Home Designers, and Architects

What’s the Difference Between Home Designers and Home Architects?

Rand Soellner Architect can be considered a home designer as well. However, it doesn’t go both ways. Home designers are not considered home architects. The reason? The term “architect” is licensed by various states in the United States of America. The term “home designers” has no licensing or educational requirements whatsoever and has no regulation. Also, most architects these days have advanced degrees in architecture from major universities. For instance, Rand Soellner Architect has both Bachelors and Masters degrees in architecture from the University of Florida and U of F Graduate School of Design. He has chosen to specialize as a home architect. This also means the term: home designer falls under his firm’s skill set.

(C)Copyright 2010 Rand Soellner, All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Anyone is hereby licensed to Link to this press release with your anchor text on your website of: Home Designers.

Home Architects can be home designers and they design small, medium and large houses.

Because the AIA (American Institute of Architects) has analyzed all types of projects and knows what project types are complex and detailed and what projects are simpler, it may be interesting for you to know that the AIA ranks home architecture as one of the most detailed and demanding types of projects possible. Why? There is usually a lot happening per sf (square foot) and per cf (cubic foot) in a house. Also, the clients (you, as the homeowner) are justifiably demanding in what they want to have happen in their house. Not as simple as a large warehouse or office building for thousands of people on one floor. Most homes have 1, 2 or 3 main floor levels and multiple interior and exterior stairs and steps.

Many homes have detailed aesthetics with beam projections, intersecting roofs, many windows and doors to allow you to enjoy your views, large kitchens with detailed cabinetry and appliance requirements, sumptuous master suites with posh bathrooms, multiple fireplaces, multi-vehicular garages, porte-cocheres, outdoor living/ cooking/ dining and even outdoor sleeping porches. There can also be complex screening and weather protection requirements, boat docks, driveways, neighborhood regulations, utility connections, and other requirements that combine to result in a demanding series of duties for your home designers/home architects.

This is pointed out so that you feel that urge to hire a real architect to handle the challenge of designing your residence. Would you hire a person without a medical degree, decades of experience, and a proper medical license to perform surgery on your body? No? Then why would you hire someone with no society-recognized qualifications to design your home? The very thing in which you and your family huddle in when feet of snow dump on its roof and hurricane winds howl outside. Don’t you want a properly qualified Professional designing your house? You are the one that needs to decide this. What do you and your family deserve?

Rand Soellner AIA/NCARB is both a member of the AIA and is certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. He also is an Energy Star Partner with the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). You don’t see skills and qualifications like this from mere “home designers” who are not also architects. Why? Because it is hard and takes a lot of skill, intelligence, and dedication to become a real architect. The pass-fail rate when Rand Soellner passed his architectural exam in 1982 was only about 20% passing at that time (he passed on his first attempt). He became certified by NCARB in 1990 (that usually takes about a decade of successful, spotless professional practice). Do not be fooled by any other organizations.

Look for these 4 things in your home architect/home designer qualifications:
1. State license that says they are an architect, at least in one state (Soellner is licensed in multiple states and his NCARB certification allows him to become licensed in just about any state in the USA through reciprocity).
2. Preferrably a University degree, preferably with a Master of Arts in Architecture. Soellner has this.
3. AIA membership. Soellner has this.
4. NCARB certification. Soellner has this.

Large, Medium and Small Home Designs and Home Designers Size Definitions

One of Rand Soellner's compact=

Now that we know home architects can also be home designers, but not vice-versa, let’s talk a little about the size of home designs: large, medium, and small. What do these mean, exactly? Well, different people believe different things about what words mean. In home designers language, this list may serve to explain what home architects/home designers believe them to mean:
Tiny: 390 hsf (heated square feet) to 600 hsf
Small: 1,000 hsf to 1,300 hsf.
Medium-Small: 1,350 hsf – 1,950 hsf
Medium: 2,000 hsf to 4,000 hsf
Large: 4,500 hsf to 6,500 hsf
Huge: 7,000 hsf to 16,000 hsf +

You may have different interpretations as to what these large, medium, and small breakoff points are for you. It really is just semantics. The above list is according to www.HomeArchitects.com, as licensed professionals and leaders in this industry of home designers.

Rand Soellner home designers create comfortable lakefront houses, rambling giant mountain castles, and cozy compact cottages in your home town. The Soellner firm is also green home oriented architects, making a daily “tweet” on Twitter as the “GreenHomeArch” (Green Home Architects), and also as the HomeArchitects.

Home Designers Creating Small, Medium, and Large Houses for You

Rand Soellner home designers created these timber frame trusses for a project just completing construction now. (C)Copyright 2007-2010 Rand Soellner, All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Now for the even more important question, “Who will design my house in one of these various sizes?” Well, for one, Rand Soellner Architect has no particular size requirement for your project in order to become a client. He delights in creating residences of all sizes, be they tiny, small, medium-small, large, or huge. It really does not matter to him. He has experience designing them all. So do not be sheepish about approaching his company to be the home designers for your residential project.