Garage Houses Are for the Birds!

I’m an architect who loves a variety of homes. While I live and thrive on the creation of new and unprecedented modern architecture I also have a great love of more traditional, categorized styles. However, there is one style of home I’ve never been able to get on board with. I call these homes “garage homes”. They’re everywhere, and I lived in a number of them growing up. Many of them are quite beautiful as a whole, but it always saddens me to see a garage be given more visual prominence and importance than the front door of the home. I’ve always felt like the front door should be the face of the home rather than the garage door.

Two distinct quotes have solidified this priority in my mind: LeCorbusier once said, “To create architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Function and objects.” In tandem with that quote, I love Suze Orman’s famous tagline from her financial TV show, “People first, then money, then things.”

I believe a home should reflect the home owners and their priorities, which is why a home with a prominent entry seems not only socially inviting to me, but reflects a love of people more than things. When the garage is the focus from the street, its contents become more of a focus than the people within. The front door doesn’t always need to be the first point of contact from the street or driveway, but the architecture of the main entry should draw more excitement than the resting place of a vehicle. Leave those garages to the birds!