David Small is the custom home designer working with RS Homes on our Echo Drive project, so we wanted to find out what inspires him.
“I was born into the business”, David explains, both his father and grandfather were builders and his mother was into the Arts. Combine both a House builder and an Artist and you get one of Canada’s premier home designers, working all over North America.
While he still hasn’t closed the book on building, his passion is for design. “I love architecture, it brings diversity, each client is different each project has new challenges.” Despite this he considers himself a designer not a house designer. For his own home he designed furniture and light fixtures something he wants to do on more projects. “Unfortunately, with clients that opportunity is limited”’ he explained “But I do a lot of cabinetry, I get excited for detail”.
This is why he likes designing a smaller home. “Designing a small house can be more fun than doing a larger one, it’s more challenging, forcing you to get into the details.”
While he designs all over North America with 7 or 8 projects on the go in the United States, It’s the GTA where he works most. David’s projects range from Traditional to contemporary, with a passion for contemporary. He is called upon to design modern all over North America, but he says “The GTA is a bit behind the curve on modern. It’s more traditional”
He has struggled for years to bring Modern to Toronto “I was a cover band waiting for the day to write my own song.” He wanted Modern and tried to sell it in the beginning, but was turned down, people associating modern with coldness. He realized he needed to design the quintessential modern house that focused on a family friendly cozy home, the result was ‘David’s House’ featured on his website.
“It’s my unique offing, ‘Natural Modern Architecture’. It’s about indoor-outdoor living, lots of glass uniting the indoors with the outdoors. The launching point for this style was the Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie House. He took the walls away, opened it up, creating his own unique style. Another similarity is the use of the land. It all begins with a site visit, he needs to walk it first. “The site has never been what I thought from the survey or google earth. It’s the unique views, the neighboring buildings and the sun’s direction that only walking the land brings. It’s the innate understanding of what the property has to offer.
Our Echo Drive build which David designed is only a block away from where he grew up on Bexhill Rd. Echo is a traditional home that reflects the client’s cultural tastes. “It’s about formality. Don’t show the house all at once. Its closed off and only revealed as you walk further into the home” There is a symmetry to the home a key element of the design.
The details are intricate, a specialty of RS Homes, and with our engineering background, RS Homes was able to add a few details such as expanding the basement under the covered outdoor terrace. This required a 24-inch steel beam to hold up the house, and a special crane was needed to lift it.
RS Homes has enjoyed working on this project, the detailing that David loves is our passion also.
We hope to work on many more David Small Projects in the future.