Design is Everything

Design is Everything is a 3,900-square-foot residential project completed in 2023 by Paul Michael Davis Design in Redmond, Washington. The commission began as a straightforward expansion of a midcentury rambler for a growing household but developed into a full transformation influenced by the owner’s interest in vintage collecting and the wooded setting of the property. The design responds to the site’s towering fir trees, extending the house horizontally while maintaining a low profile beneath the forest canopy. The defining characteristic of the original tract house is still evident, yet the new addition shifts how the home interacts with its surroundings, prioritizing the tranquil quality of the forested acreage. The architectural intervention preserves and builds on the original rambler’s structure, establishing continuity between past and present forms rather than erasing or subsuming the old. Generous windows and vaulted ceilings orient interior spaces to the landscape, reinforcing visual and spatial ties between inside and out. The reconfigured plan allows the client’s personal collection of furnishings and artifacts to populate the interiors, introducing layers of texture and narrative. Rather than adhering to minimalism, the result is a lived-in quality where the architecture acts as a measured, protective backdrop for daily life and evolving collections.

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