Ever notice how a toddler can transform a discarded box into a cozy home?

One might fill it with soft toys, pillows, a favorite blanket and other simple comforts. Another will find repose in the empty confines.

Rarely will the child attempt to raise the ceiling or tear down the walls, but instead will make do with simplicity and imagination.

Home builders, new home buyers, and contractors can learn a lot from the way kids think inside a box.

"Kids understand implicitly the pleasures of a cozy nook," says Sarah Susanka, a Minneapolis architect who has championed a bigger-isn't-always-better" approach to home design

Her Not So Big House approach to building homes and using the space within is a reversal of the bigger-is-better approach and places value on quality over quantity.

"The inspiration for The Not So Big House: Blueprint for the Way We Really Live (Taunton Press, $30), was a growing awareness that new houses were getting bigger and bigger but with little redeeming design merit," Susanka says.

"The problem is that comfort has almost nothing to do with how big a space is. It is attained, rather, by tailoring our houses to fit the way we really live, and to the scale and proportions of our human form," she added.

She's on to something.

Her first book has sold more than 250,000 copies and is among the top 20 preferred books of many of Amazon.com's book buying groups and regions.

Her second, just as popular effort, Creating The Not So Big House: Insights and Ideas for the New American Home (Taunton Press. $34), is the blueprint that illustrates concepts used to tailor a home. The book examines 25 houses from all over the nation designed according to Not So Big principles.

• Third Dimension. Most homes are constructed from the floor plan up 8 or 10 feet, without considering the possibilities achieved by varying ceiling heights within a single room. Instead of using walls to define spaces,ceiling height variations perform the same task while creating more fluid living areas that better serve today's more informal lifestyles. Susanka says it's much like creating a sculpture you can live in.

• Fear of Smallness. Concerned about spaces large enough for living, any people over compensate by making rooms too large to create comforting, cozy spaces. Livability suffers.

• Framed Openings. Like varied ceiling heights, framed openings that are typically larger than conventional doorways, allow you to create the illusion of more space, by defining one room from another, but without obstructing the line of sight.

• Spatial Layering. Layering is the next step in using framed openings -- a series of openings and surfaces used to subtly break space into segments. Layering helps create intrigue by encouraging you to explore around each edge and corner. Successive layers give the illusion of a larger area.

• Light to Walk Towards. Add light at the end of a hallway, say a window, lighted painting or some other illumination and you are drawn towards it elevating the experience of moving through a corridor.

• Visual Weight. Visual cues can extend a greater sense of shelter to a room. Darkening a high ceiling, adding texture or both can help you manipulate the sense of scale. The darkening and texture makes the ceiling appear "heavier" and not as high or tall.

• Theme and Variations. A theme repeated with variations throughout the design of a home helps maintain expressive integrity.

For more articles by Broderick Perkins, please press here.

Published: April 20, 2001

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