The wrong scale, texture and colors can ruin a space, even on a million dollar renovation. While expansive spaces can be wonderful, they can also leave homeowners feeling dwarfed, as if they re living in a vast hotel lobby. The key to avoiding this, says Paim, is scale versatility designing a space that will accommodate a large party, but is also intimate. Paim accomplishes this by including smaller spaces within larger spaces, such as a sunny window seat to curl up with a book or a breakfast nook for two. You want a room to be just as comfortable for two people as it would be for a big party, agrees Rob Steinberg, a third-generation architect working out of San Jose.
Scale is what the art of architecture is about.
That s what makes you feel comfortable in a room. Instead of feeling pinched and tight, a room needs to be gracious and allow you to move. Steinberg, who received an undergraduate degree in film from New York University before receiving his architecture degree from UC Berkeley, is interested in sequence of movement how people move from one space to another. He prefers to design open spaces that allow a person in one room to be visually connected with a person in the next room, particularly in the public spaces of a house. In a traditional Colonial-style home, rooms are defined with four walls, he says.