Why Wellness? Simply put, our current built environment is working against our health and wellness. According to the Global Wellness Institute’s 2018 report “Build Well to Live Well,” the greatest health risks we face today are a result of sedentary lifestyles and lack of exercise, poor diet, stress, pollution, loneliness and alienation. Chronic disease now… Read more »
KGA’ers John Guilliams and Kiley Baham recently had the opportunity to join the Denver Metro SMC (Sales & Marketing Council) Board on a trip to visit some of Southern California’s newest master planned communities. 11 communities, over 30 models and countless flights of stairs later, we are excited to share with you their top 6… Read more »
The demand for multi-gen homes is on the rise, fueled by an increasingly diverse buyer pool. We’ve been watching this trend for a while, but in digging into it a bit more, we found that nearly 1 in 5 Americans currently live in a multi-generational household – that’s approximately 60.6 MILLION people! (Source: Pew Research). Keeping… Read more »
Get the latest on Millennial home buyers from guest blogger Jennifer Riner of Zillow, who brings us findings from Zillow’s most recent Consumer Housing Trends Report. Millennials are not who we thought they were – at least when it comes to real estate. According to Zillow Group’s Consumer Housing Trends Report, 42 percent of home… Read more »
The Master Bath is full of opportunities for “I deserve it” features. From luxurious over-sized showers to sleek and sexy free-standing tubs, here are some of our favorite “I deserve it” features to turn your master bath into a relaxing sanctuary. Showers vs Tubs Showers are beginning to compete with the tub as the primary… Read more »
The kitchen is the perfect place to continue our conversation on “I Deserve it Features”. No surprise, the kitchen continues to be the hub of activity in the home. Cooking is fast becoming America’s favorite family hobby. Consider the popularity of shows like Master Chef and Chopped, and the ever increasing number of food blogs… Read more »
At KGA, we love incorporating “I Deserve it Features” into our home designs! From simple details to one-of-a-kind custom designs, “I Deserve it Features” take on many shapes and sizes. Over the next couple of months, we will be looking at 3 common places that “I Deserve it Features” can be incorporated into the home,… Read more »
It’s no secret that this is an exciting time to be in the home building industry! As land planners and landscape architects, we’re fortunate to have front row seats to the housing boom that Metro Denver and the Colorado Front Range are currently experiencing. Since we always keep a close watch on emerging trends in… Read more »
Net-Zero Energy homes are a hot topic these days, especially as prices for rooftop solar photovoltaics and LED lighting continue to plummet. More than ever, net-zero homes can be built for little to no added expense, and are often cheaper when considering the “monthly nut” (the total monthly cost, including mortgage, utility bills, and maintenance)…. Read more »
In the first part of this blog, we discussed the 10 Principles of Considered Design for Production Homes. Considered Design is an important evaluation tool that helps create successful, market driven designs. It is also a pledge to evaluate each nuance of a home’s design to optimize its value and livability. Today we’re going to… Read more »
At KGA we are always challenging ourselves to better understand today’s home buyers. Where do they want to live? What features in a home are most important to them? What can they afford? As architects, we create spaces. Spaces that people will want to live in, and at the same time make sense for builders… Read more »
The Origins of Considered Design Considered Design began as a set of guidelines developed by KGA to help streamline the process of designing production homes. We found ourselves addressing similar, if not the same, questions and challenges on a high percentage of projects. As a result of working through them we developed a set of parameters… Read more »
Today we’re excited to share an interview with our good friend and colleague, Christina Presley. Chris is President and Founder of Epic Homes, a new Denver based home building company. KGA has the honor of being the Architectural partner to Chris and her partner Bill Wood in designing Epic’s first line of homes. Epic broke… Read more »
Our look at production home design trends continues this week, starting in the kitchen. (If you missed part 1 of this blog, you can read it here: 10 Design Trends for the New Home Market: Part 1) 6. Back Kitchens From a design standpoint, the kitchen is still the most important room in the house…. Read more »
Last month I had the opportunity to share 10 of the top architecture and design trends I’ve seen so far this year at an event called “60 Design Trends in 60 Minutes”. The new homebuilding industry is constantly changing, and as architects we work hard to stay at the forefront of what home buyers are… Read more »
It seems the Millennials are on everyone’s mind lately, and for good reason. While Boomers numbered 77 million, the Millennial represents 92 million potential new buyers. Their impact on the housing market is just beginning. Aged from the teens into their mid 30’s, some are singles or first time buyers while others are moving through… Read more »
When I was asked by the crew at KGA to pen a guest blog entry about color, I immediately thought, “YES!” Finally, the value of a professionally designed color palette is coming to light—not only for the builders, but for the buyers as well. No longer an “after-thought”, color has the power to shape the… Read more »
Snow White had her seven dwarfs, the night sky has its Seven Sisters, and movie buffs (or if you’re a CLASH fan,) have the Magnificent Seven. Here at KGA we have our Seven S’s of Cost Control. The economy is gaining ground, and residential construction is one of the key indicators of that. Over the… Read more »
Urban living is luring suburban inhabitants back to the vibrancy of the city. Denver along with other cities in the Front Range like Louisville are some of the best places to live in the country. The reasons are plentiful: tree-lined streets, a sense of community, improved schools, mass transit, walking access to mature parks, restaurants,… Read more »
This is the last in a series of articles focused on the “I deserve it features” that are now appearing in today’s housing marketplace. With an improving housing market, cost based design is evolving to value based design which is sprinkled with “opportunities” for buyer choices and upgrades. In previous articles we have looked at… Read more »