True Life. Steven Harris Architects

Effortless and inevitable are architect Steven Harris's two favorite words. With sensitivity to the surrounding landscape, Harris designs homes custom-made to his client's daily-lived experience. His dining rooms are not aggrandizements of tradition, they are places to eat, to gather, or even work; his entry halls are not the primary places of arrival, but rather the final segments of a long trajectory that begins when the resident turns off the main road or exits the elevator. True Life, the firm's first monograph, showcases Harris's residential work over the past twenty-five years. Organized by the activities that propel his designs-dine, lounge, study, play, sleep, and so on-it focuses on people rather than objects. Harris's works are not meant to set lifestyle changes into motion, but rather to cater to those routines already in progress. Herein lies the genius of his work: Harris lets the client speak for the house, not the house for the client. A foreword by writer A.M. Homes places Harris's work in the context of contemporary architecture and speaks to the understated elegance of his designs.