Designing a house does not begin with floor plans, exterior styles, or deciding where the kitchen island should go. It begins with understanding the people who will live there and translating their habits, priorities, routines, and expectations into a useful design framework.
In this episode, Bob and Andrew examine the residential programming process and the role a well-constructed client workbook can play before design begins. They discuss why traditional questionnaires tend to focus too heavily on what a client wants while failing to explore why those spaces matter, how they will be used, and what problems the house needs to solve.
The conversation also looks at when programming should occur, how clients should complete the process, and why architects need to interpret the answers rather than simply collect them. From daily routines and entertaining preferences to storage, privacy, budget, and future flexibility, the goal is to uncover the information that actually shapes a thoughtful home.
A good house begins long before anyone starts drawing. It begins with better questions, honest priorities, and a clearer understanding of the people the architecture is meant to serve.

Designing a house does not begin with floor plans, exterior styles, or deciding where the kitchen island should go. It begins with understanding the people who will live there and translating their habits, priorities, routines, and expectations into a useful design framework. In this episode, Bob and Andrew examine the residential programming process and the role a well-constructed client workbook can play before design begins. They discuss why traditional questionnaires tend to focus too heavily on what a client wants while failing to explore why those spaces matter, how they will be used, and what problems the house needs to solve. The conversation also looks at when programming should occur, how clients should complete the process, and why architects need to interpret the answers rather than simply collect them. From daily routines and entertaining preferences to storage, privacy, budget, and future flexibility, the goal is to uncover the information that actually shapes a thoughtful home. A good house begins long before anyone starts drawing. It begins with better questions, honest priorities, and a clearer understanding of the people the architecture is meant to serve.

Ep 205: How to Start Designing Your House

Ep 199: Conflict Resolution explores how architects manage tension, stay useful under pressure, and move hard conversations toward better outcomes.

Episode 199: Conflict Resolution

Ep 198: The Creative Process | Why creativity in architecture depends on process, judgment, and knowing which ideas are worth pursuing

Ep 198: The Creative Process

Ep197: The Knowledge Gap: As veteran architects retire, the profession risks losing hard-won knowledge, mentorship, and judgment no handbook can replace.

Episode 197: The Knowledge Gap

Ep 196: Do Architects Retire explores why architects work longer, what comes next, identity shifts, and how money choices that shape retirement options.

Ep 196: Do Architects Retire

Designing Your Own House explores why architects hesitate to design their own homes: pressure, endless choices, ego vs livability, money, and what it reveals.

Ep 195: Designing Your Own House

Being your own boss isn’t about starting a firm. It’s about control, momentum, money, and owning the tradeoffs shaping your career long before you noticed.

Ep 194: Being Your Own Boss

Ep 193: The Client Experience, looks at why client relationships feel adversarial and why architects have more control than they think.

Ep 193: The Client Experience

Have a Plan is a reflective conversation about why pausing to think matters and how intention can help you move off square one this year.

Ep 192: Have a Plan

Architects ask the questions they actually want answered as Bob and Andrew dig into careers, practice, and the occasional absurdity.

Ep 191: Ask the Show Fall 2025

The Truth about Titles explores why architectural titles matter, why they don’t, and how their meaning shifts over the course of a career.

Ep 190: The Truth about Titles

A gifted storyteller communicating the role and value of architecture to a new audience, host Bob Borson uses the experiences acquired over a 25-year career to inform his podcast. A small firm owner, architect, and college design instructor, co-host Andrew Hawkins brings his insight from his 20 years in various roles within the profession. It responds to the public curiosity and common misunderstanding about what architects do and how it is relevant to people’s lives, engaging a wide demographic of people in a meaningful way without requiring an understanding of the jargon or knowledge of the history of the profession. With a creative mix of humor and practicality, Borson’s stories are informative, engaging, and approachable, using first-person narratives and anecdotes that have introduced transparency into what it really means to be a practicing architect. To learn more about Bob, Andrew, and what life is like as an architect, please visit Lifeofanarchitect.com

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