The words we draw with.
Architecture and interior terms the way we use them on paper and on site. Each one leads to a project or a service where you can see it built.
The written start of a project: who uses the space, how, for what budget and by when.
The most useful line in it is often the list of what the client does not want. We write the brief together at the first meetings, and every later decision in an interior design project is checked against it.
The space drawn exactly as it is today, not as the old plans say.
Walls are rarely straight and corners are rarely 90 degrees. A mistake here travels into every drawing after it, so we measure on site ourselves before any layout change.
The first whole version of the building: layout, volume, facades, first 3D views.
It answers "what are we building" while changes still cost a pencil line. In our architecture work it already carries plans, sections and color facades.
Where rooms, walls, doors and the main furniture go, and how people move between them.
Most everyday comfort is decided here, at the cheapest moment to change anything. The finishes come later and cannot fix a bad plan. See space planning.
Splitting a space by what happens in it: cooking, eating, rest, work, storage.
A zone does not need a wall. Light, a change of floor, a lower ceiling or one long sofa can draw the line, which is how an open plan stays calm. See functional zoning.
Images, colors, textures and real samples on one board before anything is drawn in detail.
One board settles in an hour what written comments take weeks to settle. We start material selection with it, and we prefer physical samples to pictures.
The full drawing set a builder works from: dimensions, sections, details, electrical, plumbing, lighting, specifications.
Around Seattle it is also the set that goes in for a permit. Our architects draw it to local codes; sheets that need a local license are signed by licensed professionals we work with.
Everything that goes into the project, with model, finish, size, quantity and supplier.
It turns a design into something you can price and order, and it ends the "just as good, only cheaper" swaps on site. We compile it in material selection and furniture selection.
The price of the project, counted from the quantities of work and materials on the drawings.
Vague drawings give a vague estimate; there is no trick around that. Procurement in our project support is planned against it, so the budget is on the table before work starts.
Every light source with its type, height and switching group, often with scenes.
Drawn together with the furniture: a fixture placed before anyone knows where the bed goes ends up in the wrong place for years. Part of every interior design project we do.
Furniture drawn to scale, with room to walk past, open a door, pull out a drawer.
It proves the room works before a single purchase, and it tells the electrician where outlets go. Furniture selection starts from it.
Images of the future interior or building, made from the project model.
Proportion, light and material are judged on screen, where a change is free, and not on site, where it is not. See our interior renderings.
A 3D image you could mistake for a photograph.
Real materials, real light, real furniture models: used for final approval, and to sell a house before it is finished. We work in Corona Renderer, V-Ray and Unreal Engine; see architectural visualization.
The designer on site, checking that the project is built as drawn.
Dimensions, concealed work before it is closed up, finishes against approved samples. Each small swap on site looks harmless; together they change the house. In Washington we also help clients keep to the inspection milestones of their permit; see project support.
One team takes the project from drawing to finished space; the client approves, not manages.
When design and construction sit at one table, materials and details are decided once, with the cost in view. That is how the Lesnoe house was built to a hard budget. See construction.
Changing the layout of an existing home: walls moved, rooms joined, kitchen or bath relocated.
Load-bearing walls, shared plumbing and the building envelope set the limits, and work that touches structure or plumbing usually needs a permit. We survey first, then offer several layouts; see floor plan redevelopment and remodeling design.
Official approval to build or alter a building.
In Seattle it comes from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI); Bellevue, Kirkland and the other cities have their own departments. Our architects design for permit review from the first sketch.
The whole lot on one sheet: the house, setbacks, driveway, paths, terraces, planting, utilities.
Setbacks and lot coverage often decide the size of the house before anyone draws a room. Every architecture project of ours starts here.
A wall or facade drawn straight on, with exact heights.
Interior elevations put every outlet, switch, tile joint, shelf and cabinet in its place, so nobody on site has to guess. Part of our interior design set; for buildings see facade design.
The building cut vertically, as if with a knife.
It shows what a plan hides: ceiling heights, floor and roof layers, stairs, how one level meets the next. Our architecture projects carry sections from the concept stage.
The face of a building: its outer walls, openings and the materials they are clad in.
The whole street lives with it. On Ascetic-House it is concrete, clinker and quartzite with almost 30% glass; on Copper Hall it is copper, drawn as it will look after a few years of patina. See facade design.
Cladding hung on a frame in front of the insulated wall, with an air gap that lets moisture out.
The wall breathes through the gap, the cladding takes the weather. On the Trichology Institute large Laminam slabs work as a ventilated facade and carry on through the entrance and the steps into the building.
A part of the building that projects out and is held at one end only: a floor, a balcony, a canopy.
The easiest way to make a heavy house look light, and one of the hardest to calculate. The second floor of Copper Hall cantilevers over the first, so the building seems to float above its tall glazed ground floor.
A roof with a slope too small to see, usually under a membrane.
Flat is never level: water still needs a fall to the drains. The roof of the house in Yuzhny is flat and membrane-covered. With waterproofing, railings and shade resolved, a flat roof becomes one more room, see terrace and outdoor living design.
A roof of sloping planes, the shape a child draws when asked to draw a house.
That archetype is the point. On Mansion for the Leader the pitched roof kept the familiar silhouette of a home and gave it a Scandinavian note; stone, wood, glass and metal made it of its time.
A living floor under a sloped roof, with walls that lean in.
The low edges are for storage and beds, not for walking, so we check an attic in section at the sketch stage. Around Seattle it is one of the places an ADU can go, and a bedroom there needs a window big enough for an emergency escape. See ADU and DADU design.
A room that rises through two floors, with no slab between them.
You give up floor area and get air, light from high windows and a view from one level to the other. In penthouses and two-level apartments we draw it together with the stair. See apartment and condo design.
Glass from floor to ceiling, in large fixed or sliding panels.
The view becomes the finish, and the glass becomes the weak point for heat. On Ascetic-House Schüco systems with enhanced insulation cover almost 30% of the facade; the house in Yuzhny is built around Reynaers windows.
An open space enclosed by the building itself, with the sky for a ceiling.
It brings light and air into the middle of a deep plan. When an office becomes homes, cutting a courtyard or light wells into a deep floor plate can be the move that makes the middle livable. See office to residential conversion.
An outdoor floor beside the house, paved or decked, used as a room.
The good ones are drawn with the interior, not added afterwards. On Mansion for the Leader the terrace sits by the pool, with a barbecue and a view of the pine forest and the pond. See terrace design and our article on terraces.
A frame of posts and beams over a terrace: open, slatted, glazed or with turning louvers.
It makes a room outdoors without walls. On Lesnoe a transparent pergola attached to the house turned the terrace into part of the living space: sheltered when needed, still open to the garden.
A wall that carries the floors or the roof above it, not just divides rooms.
Before any plan change we find out which walls carry load. An opening in one is possible with an engineer's calculation and, around Seattle, a permit. See remodeling design.
The part of the building below ground that passes its weight to the soil.
The soil chooses it, not taste: the type is fixed after the ground is surveyed. Next to water this matters twice, with wet ground and a slope to the shore. See waterfront home design.
A house built on a frame of wood studs, insulated between them and sheathed on both sides.
Quick to build and warm for its weight. Its quality lives in joints nobody sees once the boards are on. Around Seattle it is the usual way to build a house. Pros and cons in our frame house article.
Columns and slabs of reinforced concrete cast on site as one structure.
It frees the plan: walls between the columns can move, long spans and big openings become possible. The price is time, formwork and a heavier foundation. More in our article on monolithic houses.
Light porous concrete blocks for walls, known in Ukraine as gas block.
Warm, easy to cut, quick to lay. And fussy about mortar, reinforcement and moisture. How it compares with timber frame and concrete: frame, gas block or monolithic.
Material in the walls, roof and floor that slows heat going in or out.
Continuity beats thickness: leave one gap and the heat will find it. We go through the envelope layer by layer in our article on insulating a private house.
A spot in the envelope where heat escapes faster than around it: a slab edge, a balcony, a window frame.
In winter it shows as a cold corner, then condensation, then mold. We solve it in the details: where the balcony meets the slab, where the window meets the wall. See passive house design.
A building standard (Passivhaus) for homes that need very little energy to heat or cool.
It comes from airtightness, thick unbroken insulation, triple glazing and ventilation with heat recovery. The panoramic glazing of Copper Hall is built on Passive House technology. Read what a Passivhaus is or see our service.
How little energy a building needs to stay comfortable.
Most of it is decided by the architecture before any equipment: orientation, shade, the envelope, the windows. On Copper Hall we specified Schüco windows with a 120 mm profile against winter heat loss. Passive, net-zero and net-positive explained in this article.
Photovoltaic modules that turn sunlight into electricity, on the roof or on the ground.
We plan the roof for them from the first sketch: orientation, pitch, a clear plane with no vents in the way. In Washington the numbers work differently from the sunny south, see solar panels in WA State.
A unit that moves heat from the air, ground or water into the house, and out of it in summer.
One machine for heating and cooling, which Seattle homes have wanted since the 2021 heat dome. It works best in a well-insulated house with underfloor heating or fan coils, so we plan it with the envelope, not after it. See passive house and sustainable design.
Mechanical ventilation that warms the incoming fresh air with the heat of the air going out.
The windows can stay shut, the air stays fresh, and the heat stays in. In the trichology clinic a recovery system is hidden above the ceiling to meet medical standards.
Accessory dwelling unit: a second small home on a lot, detached (DADU) or built into the house (AADU).
A backyard cottage, a unit over the garage, in the basement or the attic. It can house parents, grown children or guests, or bring rental income. Seattle rules set its size and place on the lot. See ADU and DADU design.
The minimum distance a building has to keep from the lot lines.
It shapes the house before the architect does. We check King County and City of Seattle setbacks, lot coverage and height limits before the first sketch. See home additions.
The top-floor apartment of a building, often on two levels and with its own terrace.
The view comes with it. The work is everything else: a stair that does not eat the plan, terraces that stand up to the weather, a double-height living room. See apartment and condo design.
A planned group of houses on one site, with shared roads, utilities and common spaces.
We draw it as one place, not as many separate houses. Our settlement in the Carpathians, designed during the war for both permanent and seasonal living, relies on solar panels and rainwater collection. See hotel and resort design.
Giving an existing building a new use: an office becomes homes, a factory becomes lofts.
Keeping the structure saves time and carbon, but the old building sets hard limits: depth, plumbing, light. We test them before we promise a layout. See office to residential conversion.
The design of the land around a building: levels, paths, planting, water, light.
For us the house and the garden are one drawing. Ascetic-House opens through its glass to the pine forest, and at night hidden LED lighting keeps the grounds in use. See landscape design.
A pool on the plot or inside the house, with its own structure, water treatment and plant room.
We draw it together with the house, the terrace and the plant room, never into a finished plan. Ascetic-House has a 25 m pool and a full spa for an athlete's recovery. See swimming pool design.
Fixed or moving fins, louvers and overhangs that keep direct sun off the glass.
Outside the glass it stops the heat before it gets in; a blind inside is already too late. West windows need it most. Around Seattle it is part of keeping bedrooms cool since the 2021 heat dome. See passive house and sustainable design.
Kitchen, dining and living in one space, without walls between them.
Light and air travel freely, and so do noise and smells. Since hybrid work, many families ask for a living room that can still be closed off for quiet or a call. See remodeling design.
A kitchen that opens into the living room and shares it.
The zones are drawn without walls: a change of floor, a lower ceiling plane, light, a rug. In Residence 11 the kitchen-living room opens onto the staircase hall. See kitchen interior.
A freestanding block of cabinets and worktop in the middle of the kitchen.
It costs more and pays for itself: prep surface, storage, seats for a quick breakfast. It also needs room to walk around, about a metre (42 inches) on the working side. Without that it is just an obstacle. See kitchen interior.
A small room for clothes, with hanging rails, shelves and drawers, usually next to the bedroom.
It frees the bedroom from bulky wardrobes. Hanging needs 550 to 600 mm of depth, shelves and drawers 400 to 450 mm, and always room to spare. In Residence 11 the main bedroom has one of its own. More in wardrobe systems, shelf by shelf.
An entry room for wet coats, boots, bags and dog leashes, before the rest of the house.
In Seattle it is often the most useful room in the house and the one most people never had. We draw it with a bench, a locker per family member, hooks and a floor that does not mind water. See hallway interior.
A small storeroom for food and kitchen supplies, next to the kitchen.
It takes the bulk out of the kitchen cabinets, so the kitchen itself can stay clean and calm. We plan it from day one with the walk-in closets and built-ins, never squeezed in later. See house plans.
Rooms in a house or a hotel for water, heat and rest: pool, sauna, steam, showers, a place to lie down.
It works only as a sequence: hot, cold, rest, with short wet routes between. Ascetic-House has a full spa next to its 25 m pool, built for an athlete's daily recovery. See fitness and spa design.
A Turkish steam bath: warm stone benches, high humidity, moderate heat.
Everything in it is wet all the time, so the room is built like a shell: a vapor barrier, stone or tile on every surface, a sloped ceiling so drops run down the walls instead of onto people. See bathroom design.
A small wooden room with dry heat from a stove, usually 70 to 100 °C.
Dry heat is forgiving to the house and demanding on the details: the right wood, a stove with its own power line, air in and out. At home it sits best next to a shower and a place to cool down. See fitness and spa design.
Furniture made for one place in the house, from wall to wall and floor to ceiling.
It uses every inch, hides crooked walls and reads as part of the room. In House for Cosmopolitan the built-in systems were designed with the architecture, not added after it. More in our piece on cabinet furniture.
Furniture designed for one project and made to its exact sizes, finishes and use.
We draw it when the right piece does not exist. For the Trichology Institute the reception, shelves and stations were made custom, so they speak the same language as the walls. See furniture selection.
The strip where the wall meets the floor: protection for the wall and a cover for the joint.
A concealed baseboard sits in the plane of the wall, so the wall seems to float above the floor. It is not the cheap option and it needs straight walls. In Ascetic-House it carries soft light. More in concealed skirting boards.
A narrow recessed groove where two surfaces meet: wall and ceiling, wall and floor, panel and panel.
Instead of hiding a joint, it draws it as a thin dark line. It forgives small unevenness and makes planes look separate and precise. It is set with a profile before the plaster, so it belongs in the drawings, see interior design.
A flush door with a hidden frame that continues the surface of the wall.
No casing, no trim: the room looks larger and calmer, and an opening can go right up to the ceiling. It is also the way to hide a room. We use Rimadesio for minimal interiors, see our article on flush doors.
A door that moves along the wall or into it (a pocket door) instead of swinging.
It gives back the floor a swinging door needs. In a small bathroom a pocket door is often the move that makes the room work; a walk-in closet can be cut from a bedroom corner with a partition and sliding doors. See bathroom design.
A light inner wall that divides space and carries nothing: glass, timber, drywall or shelving.
It can close a room and keep the light, or stop at half height and only suggest a border. In House for Cosmopolitan partitions were drawn as part of the architecture, together with the furniture and light. See living room interior.
A recess in a wall, from a shelf deep enough for a vase to a bay that holds a whole wardrobe.
A planned niche turns the thickness of a wall into storage. In a shower it takes bottles off the floor; in a small hall it holds the coats. It has to be drawn before the walls go up. See hallway interior.
A raised part of the floor that marks a zone: a bed platform, a step in a kitchen, a stage for a display.
One step changes the role of a place without a wall, and the space under it can hold drawers or hide services. In a studio a bed on a podium is often the cleanest way to separate sleep from the rest. See bedroom interior.
The limited set of colours and their shades that carries a whole interior.
Fewer colours, more nuance. In the Minimalism House in the Carpathians a neutral palette lets daylight do most of the work. In a clinic a calm palette lowers stress before the patient reaches the desk. See beige in interior design.
Sizes and distances fitted to the human body: heights, reaches, clearances, routes.
It is invisible when it is right and annoying every day when it is not. In the kitchen it starts with the work triangle between fridge, sink and range. In Orange County it was how a small apartment fitted a spacious kitchen-living room, a main bedroom and a small guest room. See interior design.
Every room with water and drains: bathrooms, kitchen, laundry.
Water likes short routes. In a house we group and stack wet rooms to shorten plumbing runs; in a condo they usually stay near the existing risers. Moving a drain is the most expensive change in a bathroom. See house plans.
A shower without a tray or a step: a level floor with a continuous slope to the drain.
It makes a small bathroom look larger and stays safe at any age. The work is hidden in the floor: the slope, the waterproofing, the height for the drain. We often draw it in ADU bathrooms too, see bathroom design.
A long narrow floor drain, usually along a wall of the shower.
With the floor sloping one way, large-format tiles can stay whole instead of being cut into an envelope around a point drain. It is chosen together with the fixtures, see how to choose bathroom fixtures.
Heating pipes or cables under the floor finish that warm the room from below.
Warm stone underfoot through the grey months, and a bathroom floor that dries after every shower. Under the glass of the house in Yuzhny water underfloor heating works with trench convectors. See whole-home interior design.
One system for light, climate, security, blinds and leaks, run from a hub, sensors and scenarios.
It has to be planned with the walls, not after them: cables, boxes, a place for the hub. In Ascetic-House the smart-home layer was developed with the architecture, furniture and light as one environment. More in our smart home article.
Layers in walls, floors and ceilings that stop sound passing between rooms and homes.
Mass, air gaps and no rigid links. In a condo the first move is an acoustic underlayment under the new floor, so the neighbors below do not hear footsteps; many buildings require it. See apartment and condo design.
An open or glazed firebox in the room, burning wood, gas or bioethanol, or an electric one.
Still one of the most requested features. Around Seattle the fuel matters: winter burn bans limit wood-burning on some days, so gas or electric is often the practical choice. Ideas in fireplace design from around the world.
Flights, landings and railings between levels: straight, L-shaped, U-shaped or spiral.
It is the largest piece of furniture in a house and often its sculpture. In Residence 11 the feature stair opens from the kitchen-living room; in Copper Hall living plant walls climb along it. Types and safety rules in our staircase article.
An intermediate floor open to the room below, inside one tall volume.
A tall ceiling looks like the perfect case for it, and the height has to be counted: both levels need to be usable, not just visible. We walk through one of our own projects in mezzanine floor in an apartment.
Batteries, an inverter or a generator that keep the essentials running when the grid goes down.
Calculate it, do not guess: capacity in watt-hours equals the load times the hours you need, plus 20 to 30 percent. Then give it a place in the plan with ventilation and its own circuits. The full method is in designing for outages.
The wall surface between the worktop and the upper cabinets.
It takes water, grease and heat every day, so we choose it for how hard it will work: natural stone, quartz, porcelain slab, glass. In our minimalist apartment we kept the previous owner's kitchen and gave it a new backsplash. Stone options compared in stone kitchen backsplashes.
A room inside the home built to protect people: solid walls, no exposed glass, its own light and air.
In our Ukrainian projects it is planned from the first sketch by the two-wall rule: at least two walls between the room and the outside, or a shelter in the basement. Elsewhere the same room serves as a storm or security room. See house plans.
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