Custom architect residential design follows a specific sequence of decisions. The process matters because spatial decisions made early — orientation, section, program organization — cannot be corrected cheaply later. The ones made late — material finishes, hardware, lighting fixtures — can. The methodology is structured so that the irreversible decisions happen with the most analysis supporting them. The process before the style.
Phase One: Site Before Program
The first work in MÉTODO's residential process is a site analysis, not a client brief meeting. We visit the site before we discuss the program.
The site analysis produces:
- A solar study: the sun's position at key hours across key seasons, and what that means for the orientation of primary spaces
- A topographic analysis: how grade changes across the site and what the floor level options are
- A view analysis: from which positions on the site the best views are available, and at what heights
- A context analysis: neighboring structures, setbacks, street noise, entry possibilities
That analysis takes a day on site and a week of documentation. It produces a set of constraints and opportunities that are specific to this land. No other site in the world produces the same set.
Only after that analysis do we begin the program conversation, because the program must respond to what the site offers.
Phase Two: Program Derivation
Program derivation in custom residential design is not a room list. It is an investigation of how your household actually lives.
We ask questions that are not typically asked in an architect's first meeting: What time do you wake up and in what direction is the light you want? Do you cook while talking to people in the main space, or do you cook separately? Where does your household make its most important decisions? Which rooms need to be quiet, and quiet from what?
The answers to these questions are not obvious, and they do not come from a questionnaire. They come from a structured conversation, usually over two meetings. The result is a program that reflects actual behavior, not idealized behavior.
A house designed for how you actually live is different from a house designed for how you imagine you live.
Phase Three: The Matrix of Options
The matrix of options is the document that presents the design decision at the right scale: before any image, before any rendering, before any specific spatial concept.
The matrix compares three to five spatial configurations. Each one responds to the site analysis and the program in a different way. Each one implies different structural systems, different material strategies, different relationships between spaces, different construction complexity.
The matrix is evaluated against three criteria: how well does it serve the program, how well does it respond to the site, and what does it cost to build?
You decide from the matrix by comparing options, not by approving an image. The matrix of options: deciding by comparing, not guessing. This is the most important moment in the design process — and it happens before anyone has drawn a building.
Phase Four: Section Development
Schematic design in MÉTODO begins with the section, not the plan. The section is the vertical description of how the house performs: how it receives light, how air moves through it, how spaces relate to each other above and below, what the experience is of moving through it vertically.
A section study for a residential project typically explores three or four variations: differences in ceiling height relationships, roof geometry, relationship to grade, and location of key spatial events — a double-height volume, a compressed entry, a low ceiling that opens into a tall room.
The section determines most of what matters about living in the house. The plan follows from the section, not the other way around.
Phases Five and Six: Resolution and Documentation
Design development resolves the schematic design into buildable decisions: structural system, envelope assembly, window and door typology, material specification, systems coordination. This phase produces detailed drawings that a contractor can price reliably.
Construction documents translate those decisions into the legal and technical documents required for permits and for construction: dimensioned drawings, specifications, details. The quality of construction documents determines the predictability of construction — both in cost and in outcome.
Construction Administration
Construction administration is not supervision — it is the architect's continued presence in the project during construction. Field questions, substitution requests, unforeseen conditions, shop drawing review. A project without construction administration often produces a building that looks like the design documents only approximately.
In MÉTODO, construction administration is part of every residential project, not an optional add-on.
Próximos pasos
The custom architect residential design process is front-loaded with analysis so that the decisions that cannot be undone are made with the most information supporting them. Every hour spent in analysis saves multiples in revision.
Conoce el método de MÉTODO — the full process from site selection through construction completion.