Not So Big Living

Ten years ago, architect Sarah Susanka’s first book, The Not So Big House, changed American residential architecture.  Susanka wrote, “The inspiration for [the book] came from a growing awareness that new houses were getting bigger and bigger but with little redeeming design merit. 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.” It was the beginning of the end of the McMansion era (although, surprisingly, the things continue to sprout up across the country).

Rising fuel prices and a growing awareness of the importance of green building make Susanka’s words prescient. A tenth-year anniversary edition of her first book will be out in a few weeks. And her latest, Not So Big Remodeling, written with co-author Marc Vassallo, will be published in February, 2009.  At her website you can download chapters from two of her books. After reading what she has to say, you’ll never look at the unused spaces in your house the same way again.