Designing your perfect home

Design Marque has been fortunate to have been engaged with some amazing people whilst designing their often most precious possession, their home. We appreciate and are very respectful of the trust and belief they place in our abilities. Equally, it’s exciting for us to get the opportunity to show our clients what is possible and what a well-designed home can be. What it can do for a lifestyle and perhaps, more importantly, our client’s general feeling of wellbeing. A home is often our only sanctuary. The place where all is right with the world. Irritations are excluded, surroundings in sync and harmonious, responding, sharing and adding to the joyful rhythm of your life. My name is Marque (pronounced Mark), I have a bespoke residential home design company and these are some of the essential ingredients that form the essence of our design rationale and thought processes for any home we design and a part of what drives me when designing our client’s home experiences. It’s not mere architecture, it’s a home.

As the son of one of the UK’s most qualified engineers, I realised that the creative talents inherited from my mother were a better fit. The engineering background helped me become a builder’s designer, I understand structures well but ultimately my ambition and what really excites me, is a desire to create homes, that not only look good, function well, are well appreciated and improved the quality of my clients lives but look settled, are comfortable and draw their outdoor environments into the home as an essential part of the residential experience. They respond and communicate with the senses. A good home involves the metaphysical and the emotions, as well as the practical and functional. Design Marque’s aspiration is to realise these objectives and create the very best home for our client’s.

Properties are big commitments, so accounting for and how all the various considerations of ‘Home’, come together to enhance the total livability, is something that Design Marque gives particular attention. We appreciate our clients have busy lives and they need professional who knows and can provide them with the best options for them to decide between. Our clients can feel relaxed because they are working with a very experienced team.

Wellness housing is a relatively new term but Marque uses it because he believes it represents considerations that represent the future of executive housing. Ask yourself, “what more can my home do to improve my wellbeing”? If it’s not considered at the outset how can it be expected? At Design Marque we considered for our client’s.

Design Marque’s knowledge of custom home design is extensive. Marque has personally designed several hundred exclusive homes including some for Hollywood and Musical Royalty. That represents a huge catalogue of experience, amassed over a huge variety of project’s. Some= homes have well over 25,000 sf. purely of living space. Over the years these client’s have shared their wants, thoughts, and ideas. Their practical experiences and impressions, what worked and what didn’t. It represents a learning curve that is hard for anyone to emulate but one Marque is happy to share. With this experience, Design Marque can take or share the worries and concerns of our client’s and truly partner them in the creation of an amazing home.

Marque will start by helping to develop a wish list. That is simply a list itemising all the things our client’s want in their new home, addition or renovation. It’s not crucial and doesn’t have to be definitive at the outset, so it ought not to be stressful. Design Marque’s aim is to eliminate client stress. A list is merely a helpful tool that formulates a starting point. As Design Marque has been through the process many times, we communicate that the start, is just that, a start.

From there we will develop a design that works best and excites our clients most. It’s our clients choice always but it is our responsibility to show the client what is possible. At this point, I should mention that its actually not uncommon for us to hear our clients say that, “I’m not entirely sure what I want”. Followed by “but I know very well what I don’t want!”. If it sounds not only a little comical but familiar, it is completely understandable because it is the same for most of us. However, its worth remembering that the, ‘don’t likes can be just as useful. They can help us narrow down on what’s important. The no’s become as important to us as the yes’s. Developing a framework that reflects the projects particular ambitions totally. Confidence and experience taught Marque that with patience and time and the repertoire of designs he has already completed, no matter budget or scale of the project, he will find or develop the very best solutions for the home.

Marque appreciates and enjoys the fact that every new project can teach him something new. He enjoys working with successful, motivated, high energy people, as he believes the creative world is at is best when in that kind of responsive environment. Unlike many homes that are designed yesterday and built today, Design Marque homes reflect this energy and attitude into the homes. Homes that meet the wants and needs of current day life styles, no matter their architectural style.

The Design Marque process is intended to be empowering, friendly and often exciting to our clients. Homes as a result reflect the positiveness of this approach. Finished projects radiate those qualities and visitors feel a sense, excitement, comfort and harmony even if sometimes they find it hard to explain why. Marque says it might resemble the feeling when experiencing the making of a tailored suit. It’s is usually fun process, provides a comfortable fit, provides for your needs, incorporates your personality and enhances your feeling of self and wellbeing. It is usually a rewarding and educational experience, you may not have known exactly what you wanted at the outset but once done, just looking at it on the hanger, makes you feel good because of everything that went into it. Now imagine doing the same thing only for your home. Simple, a tailormade home.

Home for many of our clients today also means sanctuary. Ultimately places that nurture our wellbeing. Secure, safe, reliable. Places that close out an often manic world. A well-designed home is considerate of the owners wishes as a first priority and those become the essential essence of their home. The building blocks. That essence will reflect loudest in its physical presences, so it is important it is considered discussed and understood. The clarity in the identity your home presents should be consistent with the personality you want it to project. As well as wish lists we have priorities. Strangely enough not every room can be entered off the master suite, so that means some will need to have priority over others. A home’s layout can come down to how those priorities are laid out. A glamorous home might be important but if it is to function as a family home to there needs to be a balance. The art of life is – Balance. A balancing of the clients own unique priorities, in a conceived and thoroughly well thought through an arranged way, that is comfortable and harmoniously considerate of all the parts, will reflect the best type of home.

It’s true homes today need to provide sanctuary but they can do better than that. They can improve our overall wellbeing. Lighting, air quality, facilities, technology, security, energy consumption, overall style, landscaping and materials, are all considerations that affect us emotionally and mentally, so they ought to be doing so in the most positive way they can. Considerate design will take into account the owners movements around the house, considers the homes energy consumption so that it doesn’t lead to embarrassing awkward conversation, consider the homes lighting which should not promote feelings of anxiety, (many LED light fittings do), it should be user first tech-friendly, and be constructed environmentally sensitively because it needs to meet and understand the clients sensibilities toward those issues. Reflect a traditional, contemporary or modern architectural style, whichever the client relates to best but still able to satisfy the ambitions we have touch on here and create ta home with a sense of wellbeing. It’s an internal confidence Design Marque client’s have as they know, that what has been done, has been done in consideration of them and what they care about in mind. If that’s done well, that, in Marque’s opinion, it is a well-designed home.

So let’s assume your Design Marque home is now complete. It’s a truly well-considered thing, its location, arrangement on the site, incorporation of landscaping, its inside-outside living spaces well-considered, its family, private spaces and public entertaining spaces work well, the layout flows and reduces redundancy, basement space has been included to reduce the footprint and energy consumption is reasonable. Its light and airy yet warm and comforting, the design detail elements are well-considered for low maintenance, the interiors support and inspire wellbeing, reflecting the right lifestyle and the intended idea of balance. Support self-worth, joy and calm. Your home encourages you to take the opportunity to stop occasionally and take in in the surroundings. You do and it gives you profound pleasure. The home has then, succeeded in its ambitions. Clients have told us how much they appreciate the homes we help them create. They take pride in them and they like to show others. When our client’s do that, we consider it our biggest success.

Marque will suggest his clients consider incorporating details that make a home more personal, special or unique. Items or details that will help capture special memories. Specially considered vista, or favourite morning Sports World Magazine reading nooks, video wall workout spaces or themed garages, social areas, panelling from trees farmed from the plot or a special details that relate to family heritage or tradition. It could be almost anything. Thoughtful landscaping, or the planting of a special feature tree of which becomes, a focal point, a Christmas tree or an object of celebration. They can become focal points or conversational triggers of the property. A part of the family history, heirlooms, start a tradition, generate memories recorded on a family photo wall. A storey that endures with the property and is passed on through generations or ownership. Memories that add to the enjoyment and character of Home. Little seems to resonate as much than when a parent turns to a child and says, “my dad planted that oak in the front garden when you were my age”. Let’s make a Design Marque home part of your legacy. Something special and enduring. Something you have pride in and others can admire. Marque enjoys the opportunity of creating more memories and more Homes that consider our wellbeing so let’s go.