Timeless Design for Houses: Talk #4

Talk #4

4th Commandment: Use Scale, Balance and Proportion for an Approachable House

Date: Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Time: 6:00 PM social hour, 7:00 PM talk

Place: Judd Kendall VFW Post 3873, Lower Level
908 W Jackson Ave
Naperville, IL 60540

Spoiler Alert—creating an Approachable House takes more than simply propping that ubiquitous ‘Welcome’ sign next to the front door!

Scale, Proportion and Balance for an Approachable House, the fourth Talk in a series about timelessness for all things residential, explored how architectural elements, large and small, can help make a house look and feel welcoming to the neighborhood, neighbors and those simply driving or walking by.

Tom started by looking at how decisions in new construction and remodeling can impact the planet’s health, then showed how scale, proportion and balance can influence towns and neighborhoods and finally examine which parts and pieces of a house, in the right places, make a house truly approachable.

About 44 attending this event including two new member households.

Walk the Talk  #4

On Saturday, August 16th, Tom took attendees past examples of approachable houses, with a special final stop where showing  firsthand how the design and placement of interior and exterior spaces can create desirable unplanned social interactions between the homeowner and passerby.

5 Strategies to Make Your Home More Approachable & Timeless

1. Keep it simple—less is more in almost all cases. Simple doesn’t mean plain if you’re using timeless architectural principles.

2. Keep the overall building scale to a minimum with larger houses and additions spread out, not simply Super-Sized. Reasonably sized houses cost less to build, condition and keep clean.

3. Design plans and exteriors simultaneously to avoid ending up with a Mr. Potato-Head House.

4. Unless you live in a Traditional neighborhood built prior to 1940 or a Modern enclave created between 1930 and 1960, don’t look to neighboring houses for design inspiration. These were times when architects designed individual houses. Today that number is under ten percent.

5. Hire an experienced residential architect or learn the basics of timeless design yourself (share your knowledge). Your general contractor or window/siding person shouldn’t, and really doesn’t want to, spend time designing your house.

Sources of Inspiration

Book: Chapters 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 13 of "Get Your House Right: Architectural Elements to Use & Avoid" by Marianne Cusato and Ben Pentreath (Available Locally at Anderson’s Bookshop)

Online: Writings by or about Leon Krier (1946-2025)