A New Direction for Slow Home Studio

Posted on: August 3rd, 2011 | 5 Comments

We’re very pleased to announce the next step in the development of the Slow Home Movement. Learning about design, like learning how to cook, is something that is best accomplished through practice. In the same way that Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution uses demonstration cooking classes to teach the basic techniques of good cooking, we’ve created demonstration design classes to teach the basics of good residential design. In fact, Slow Home Studio is the first design school intended specifically for homeowners, design enthusiasts, and building industry members. Our goal is to help you to `think like an architect` and start exerting more control over where and how you live.

  • http://www.thirdstone.ca Louis Pereira

    John | Matthew – Congratulations on launching yet another exciting chapter for Slow Home!  Your immeasurable efforts have for so long and continue to provide an infinite service and benefit to everyone interested in residential design.

  • Sam

    John & Matthew – Great news on your new educational launch! I look forward to participating.

  • Louise

    This is wonderful, and badly needed.  Architecture schools teach building design as fine art.  That’s OK for corporations and the weathy, but what about the rest of us?  Contractors can’t be counted on to understand design.  I’ve often thought that architecture should take a cue from medicine.  Nurse Practitioners and Physicians Assistants handle everyday health issues at a much lower cost than MD’s.  Your training will make something similar available in the home building industry.  Three cheers!

    I hope that you won’t limit the examples in your courses to buildings with a modernist aesthetic.  Not just for the sake of one old fogey.  Your training will appeal to a broader audience if the images resonate with people’s experience.  In the eastern US, we have a huge stock of traditional homes, Cape Cods, bungalows, ranches.   We need to see examples of design solutions that can be applied to those environments. 

    Thanks for all you’re doing.  Best of luck.           

  • http://slowhomestudio.com John Brown

    Thank you all for the kind words. We’re really looking forward to the courses starting in September. The construction work on the demonstration teaching studio is almost finished!

    Louise, I like your medical analogy. I would extend it one step further and say that we also want to help educate “patients” so that they can begin to identify which complaints require a professional and which can dealt with through simpler means.  You also make a good point on style. We try hard to generalize our design commentary so that it is applicable to all types and styles of houses. The difference between a fast house and a slow home is not about cost or how it looks but in the quality of its underlying design.

  • Krista

    Congrats to you both! It’s been exciting to watch the ever evolving Slow Home Studio. As a Home Designer I believe that a focus on well conceived design can transform a house from a cookie cutter to a slow home. I thank you for your dedication to communicate design ideas to everyone…not just architects but homeowners, home builders & developers. We all can learn from each other through sharing our experiences. Again Congrats & I look forward to participating!