Volume 06 — On Designing for a Stranger

Lots of interesting questions arise in the early part of the design process. Each type of residential interior has different guide rails. 

When we’re designing for spec homes, there’s a set of questions we’re constantly asking ourselves. And they all revolve around a person we’ve never met. 

Because how could we? They don’t exist yet… at least not in front of us.

Questions like who wakes up here?

Who cooks here?

Who hides from the world here?

Who spends an hour making and drinking tea before the day begins?

Who spends time with their children here, and how?

What’s their immediate routine when coming through the door from work?

It might sound silly, designing for a stranger, but that’s exactly what we do. 

Personally, I never liked the term avatar. It feels clinical and marketing-driven. More than that, it feels static. 

An avatar can be a CEO who drives a Porsche. 

But Pif. is designing for people. And people leave their coffee cups on the left side of the sink, and read in bed until midnight. People hate when cold air from the air vent hits them while they’re brushing their teeth.

In luxury residential, we often have the gift of designing for one. And there’s such beauty in that.

We truly believe that there’s a person out there who will fall in love with this home because it deeply speaks to them.

Now, you may be thinking, “Yo. That’s literally an avatar.” 

Yes. You’re not wrong. 

But I’m choosing to reject that and pretend we’re doing something different here. 

Because in practice, it does feel quite different. 

Instead of avatars, we imagine a life. 

Because finishes don’t exist in a vacuum. 

They exist downstream from ritual.

Once we’ve imagined the person and the life, everything else begins to reveal itself naturally. 

Maybe they adore cooking and need a chef’s kitchen

Maybe they need a scullery.

Maybe they’re obsessed with recovery and biohacking. 

Maybe they collect records. 

Maybe they never cook at all. And as a result, they hire chefs for gatherings. Which means they may need both a chef’s kitchen and a solid scullery nearby. 

It’s the life that determines the rooms, not the other way around.

Imagine we’re designing a high end luxury residential spec home, and we’ve already created a retreat space inside the primary suite. 

One where we’ve roughed in water because we imagined someone wanting a coffee station. 

Months later, the buyer materializes. Now we’re no longer imagining.

We learn that every morning they prepare matcha, meditate, and journal.

Now that rough-in transforms into a matcha station. 

Maybe it gets a pot filler for their tea kettle, or maybe it turns into an instant-hot faucet with a variable temperature option so they don’t burn their tea (yes that’s a real thing).

And the part a lot of people don’t see, is that the luxury isn’t in the fixture itself, it’s in the foresight of it.

Recently, in a home listed for nearly 15 million dollars, I had a run-in with some beautiful sconces, which they repeated throughout the home. 

The sconce in question was an organic, sculptural thing. Almost conch-shaped, with a reveal in one of the inward curving faces. 

From straight on, the reveal let light escape in a beautiful way. But step 45 degrees to the right, and the LED diodes stare back at you. No amount of dimming or reduction of kelvins can right that wrong. 

At that moment, the illusion broke. 

So many other countless details kept our illusion together. Everything interacting together in a beautiful symphony until this moment.

Luxury doesn’t have to mean expensive objects. But it does have to understand that it’s maintained by refusing to break with the story. 

As I hope you’re coming to realize during this read, we ask a lot of questions at Pif. 

It’s one thing from childhood I never grew out of. And that’s the way I choose to lead our studio. 

The same thing happened again just a couple of days ago, in a six million dollar spec home.

It had everything you’d expect. 

Grand spaces.

Great Location

Fine finishes

And also something else. 

Schluter trim in the shower.

For those who aren’t aware, Schluter is the metal trim often installed at the edge of tile. It’s a cost effective way to transition from one surface to another. 

Technically it's fine. There’s nothing wrong with using schluter in a shower to finish corners and edges. 

But emotionally, it’s so wrong. It screams lazy and careless. 

Someone who’s worked hard enough in life to seriously consider purchasing a six million dollar home (which likely isn’t even their primary residence) should hope to never see another piece of schluter in their homes. 

You’d think in a six million dollar home, you’d have elevated beyond that.  

Every decision we make, asks something like the following:

What kind of Tuesday morning happens here?

What kind of evening?

What kind of ritual?

What kind of gathering?

Many think we’re designing for “the wealthy.” 

However, our work is in imagining the humanity inside wealth. 

Perhaps luxury isn’t about imported stone, as nice as it may be. Or pot fillers, or twenty car garages. 

Perhaps luxury is all about reducing friction before someone even knows it exists. 

Perhaps luxury is believing in the inner life of a perfect stranger strongly enough to design for it.