What draws me in isn't so much the buildings themselves as the spaces between them—those pauses, those intervals, the "architectural breaths" between volumes.

In modern design, we often forget that architecture is not only what we build but also what's left around it. Ancient architects seemed to grasp this better than we do. Think of Greek temples—they were never crammed together; there was always room for air, for the eye, for contemplation.

When I work on a facade project, I often wonder: what will this house "say" to its neighbors? What kind of dialogue will spring up between them? Will it be a meaningful conversation or just noise?

What's interesting is that many clients want to "make the most of the lot"—as if empty space were wasted. Yet meaning is often born in that very emptiness. It's like music—the pauses between the notes matter just as much as the notes themselves.

Maybe our studio could design not only facades but also the spaces between them. It sounds unusual, but why not? After all, can't we design silence too?

Have you ever noticed the gaps between the buildings in your neighborhood? What do they tell you?

It's interesting how my habits change when I land in a new place. Everyone can recall this from their own travels. Take the same family, the same things, the same kids, and have them stay in one place after another, and you'll see how differently they spend their days.

The places and things we use reshape our routine. Oddly enough, we adapt to the set of objects around us and furnish the space to fit. The arrangement of the walls affects when we go to bed and wake up, how much we move, eat, read, entertain ourselves, talk to one another, and work.

Where are the TV and the kids' room in relation to each other? Which corners get good light during the day? Where is the house quiet? Is it easy to carry food out to the terrace? Is it hot or cool out there? Who can see me from the balcony? Who am I disturbing in the evening? Can I wander these rooms and stay interested? The shower, the bathroom, the pool, the size of the refrigerator, the canopy, the oven, the blender, the treadmill, the projector, the stereo, the streaming subscription — each place has a different set, and each time I change along with it.

I'm used to thinking about houses in terms of possibilities and use cases.

Unfortunately, the time to shape a space is rarely given — when building or fixing up a house, when renovating, when choosing a rental. And it's impossible to plan for everything in those moments. You have to adjust and learn from experience.

The biggest mistake in building a house is ending up with interior space made of separate boxes, each with a window and a door — just like an apartment, only bigger. Life in these boxes is dull and joyless in itself, not much different from a tract house in the city.

Inside these "containers," designers build drywall niches, hang "beams" and multilevel ceilings, play with mirrors, and do everything they can to break up the confined space. But finishes and furnishings never fully solve the problem of a boring, walled-off rectangular space.

The simple rectangle and the cube are the most artificial, man-made forms, yet people want a natural environment. Nature is blurry, complex, multifaceted, changeable, and imperfect.

There's no need to chase geometric logic or symmetry (unless you have a compulsion for it). What looks beautiful on the plan will grate on the soul. Just recall the Soviet housing districts built on a geometric principle. I remember how dreary it was, despite the grandeur of the architects' designs. It's better when a home's architecture doesn't dominate but dissolves.

When you build a house, try to make the space interesting: connected room volumes, lots of different windows, visual bridges, corners, turns, nooks, rises and dips (keeping ergonomics in mind), double-height spaces, breaks, visible rooflines. Don't be afraid of quirks and irregularities — they'll become dear to you, and your children and grandchildren will love them.