Kirk Mitchell of AKT Designs | North Woodland Street in Englewood | Beyond McMansions
Courtesy of AKT Designs
Beyond McMansions
As the old adage goes, a man's home is his castle. That doesn't mean that every home is a castle or a mansion, but in this day and age, it could very well be a McMansion. In this episode, I explore the history of mansions and how the style has been interpreted by millions of suburban homeowners. I also revisit a conversation I had with Kirk Mitchell of AKT Designs about his single-family home renovation in Englewood, New Jersey that exemplifies how to avoid tired McMansion tropes.
In the suburbs of New York City, it’s common for developers to knock down existing properties and replace them with supersized homes. Instead, Kirk found a way to marry the client's desires, budget, and current design trends to create a modern ranch-style home.
By adding a second kitchen, home gym, and billiards room, the house now strikes a balance between the client's request for a modern ski chalet and a bachelor pad. Kirk shares his step-by-step process for renovating this type of property, including coming up with floor plans, construction drawings, and interior design ideas.
We also discuss the importance of having the right development team, using Pinterest to create mood boards and design ideas, and some of Kirk's other multi-family and commercial projects.
“Not a lot of architects have experience also in the value proposition of doing renovations of a home. We were able to find that happy medium to modernize the entire house, but without making him regret not knocking it down and building something.”
Courtesy of AKT Designs
About Kirk Mitchell
Kirk is the Founder and Principal at AKT Designs, an architecture and interior design firm based in Bergen County, New Jersey. He focuses on residential projects across New York and New Jersey. He has particular expertise in combining historic details with modern technology, having completed over 80 townhouse projects at AKT Designs and previously as the Director of Design and Construction for a Dixon Advisory.
Courtesy of AKT Designs
Episode Timestamps
2:26 – The history of mansions and McMansions.
7:15 – Can you describe the site of 32 Woodland and Englewood, New Jersey for our listeners?
15:45 – Talk to us about the design process from the initial ski lodge aesthetic that you described to the final design that you presented. What is the step-by-step in that process?
20:27 – Amongst like the limitless options that you have at your disposal as a design professional, what process do you go through in order to take that set of options to be something that is sensible for you to be looking at, and then sensible for the client to make a decision about?
22:45 – The pandemic has changed a lot of the normal processes of residential design. What would you say has been the biggest change in terms of the process and also the physical layout of the homes that you've been working on?
28:32 – What do you see in terms of your pipeline? Do you see that being reflected where now you're doing projects all across this tri-state? Or are you seeing people staying put where they are and doing a lot of that renovation work in the house that they're in already?
31:00 – During this time, you've also pivoted towards multifamily and commercial projects, including several in Newark, New Jersey. Could you talk about some of those projects?
33:07 – What would you say are the most important things in managing a team to be able to do all these big projects?
Additional Resources
Connect with Kirk Mitchell:
Courtesy of AKT Designs
About your host:
Atif Qadir is the Founder & CEO of Commonplace, a technology company making it easy for commercial real estate professionals to find and use the $100B of real estate incentives given out every year in the US.
His work has been covered by Technology Review, The Real Deal, Commercial Observer, and Propmodo. He’s also a frequent speaker on the future of buildings and cities on popular industry podcasts and at conferences, including this past year at the Commercial Observer National DEI Conference, Yale AREA Conference, Columbia Real Estate Symposium, Open Data Week NYC and Austin Design Week.
About Commonplace
Commonplace is a founding sponsor of American Building. It is a 100% minority-owned, real estate technology company founded in 2020 to make financing social impact development projects across the US easier. It is funded by venture capital investors Hometeam Ventures, Park West Asset Management, New York Ventures and Shadow Ventures.
About Michael Graves
The world-famous design firm Michael Graves is also a founding sponsor of American Building. Its namesake, the iconoclastic designer Michael Graves, FAIA was a fierce advocate for people-centric design. His work defines a generation of American architecture and includes the Portland Building, the Humana Building and the Denver Public Library. The 1st season of American Building was filmed live at The Warehouse, his historic home in Princeton, New Jersey:
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