Six Principles for an Extraordinary Home

Imagine achieving the goal of building your very own home. If you have decided this is for you, to build your dream home, you want to make sure your investment pays off. Very few people can achieve this dream and if they do, the problem is very few get it right. I get asked all the time, “how can we design and build a home that’s different to everyone else and suits our personality, what will it cost and how long it will take?”. I have seen a lot of people start this process the wrong way and end in failure, going over time and over budget, ending up building an ordinary, soulless, unhealthy space and sometimes giving up before they even start building. I have also seen the complete opposite when people have had the correct information at the start and have ended up with an enjoyable process and life-changing home. 

The book I am currently writing, promises to open your eyes to the life-changing effects our built environment has on our daily lives and explains why a conscious home is a missing link to your dream life and true happiness. The book gives you six principles to unlock the conscious code that will guide you through the process of finding what truly brings you to life in your home and how to make it a flourishing person sanctuary and healthy ecosystem for not only living but thriving with your loved ones. 

You can build a beautiful, elegant family home you love to be in. Every time you wake up in your home you feel at peace, you feel fulfilled and your loved one’s enjoy being there. Your home should have a perfect connection with the outdoors and allow you to be creative while keeping your health at an optimal level. 

I’m a qualified carpenter and have been building for 17 years and running my own company for 10 years. I employ carpenters, architects and interior designers and have built three of my own homes and I am currently designing the fourth. Twice we've won the Master Builders award for the building the best homes in Australia. It turns out, there's a science to it. The 6 overarching principles I have discovered work no matter where you are building, if you follow these principles you will produce extraordinary homes, we customers coming back to us to build their 2nd home they like the process so much. 

Growing up my passions were always building and the outdoors. As I started my business I realised I also had a passion and thirst for knowledge, I love listening to audiobooks on all topics and am fascinated by personal growth, health, mindfulness and I found myself continually looking to connect the dots between what I learn and what I do daily. I started to find frameworks like Maslow's hierarchy of needs and principle on human evolution and how I could relate them back to our buildings. I love thinking of ways to eliminate it or fix it from a first principle perspective. I see the positive effects of successful building and my energy comes from seeing someone realise their dream to build the home they always wanted.

I am excited to share the six core principles for designing a home and making the best possible environment for a human to live, we have all evolved past just needing shelter and these principles must not be overlooked no matter what size, style or the location you are building in. The six principles in this book are Purpose, Environment, Function, Health, Feeling and Technology. These are based on the core of human evolution and human potential but have a specific focus on you the individual plus a world centric view on us a species and the future health of our planet. 

The principles will make sure you get the home you desire and one you will be proud of, not just an expensive mix of Pinterest images meshed into an un-functional design. Your home should complement your current lifestyle and help make your future life better. Designing for life vision, core values, the location you want to live, how you will connect with others, your habits, your personality and investment you are willing to make in this new life. The principles talk about things from bio-hacks, building materials, flow states, to air quality, water and optimal health.

We use these principles in our step by step 3 stage design process, helping you make informed decisions to stay on budget throughout the design. We created this process because we found that 70% of architectural plans never get built, because they are designed over budget. Customers with plans that were coming to us from external architects haven’t even been asked the fundamental questions about their home design and how they intend to live. When we would quote the plans, they would sometimes end up double the budget they had told their architect. It’s close to impossible to bring a project back in line to what the client really wants at this stage without starting from scratch again. That’s why the information placed on the pages of this book is so important, to give you an underlying shift in thinking about how your home will affect you, six principles to guide you to ultimate happiness, a builder's knowledge and the tools to make it happen. 

I have never before seen an integral theory and method on our built environment covering aspects across all these areas of life, my vision is to help shape the future of humanity by transforming the future of our built environment, I see a future where every home is making the world better one home at a time, and at the end of the day I can only be the guide, it’s you that holds the power to shape the future by deciding to build a conscious home for your family and our future generations. I'd love for you to be a part of our vision.

I would love your comments and feedback around these principles and I am open to any information you think would be helpful to read before you design and build your dream home and I will make sure I consider it for a section in the up coming book. 

- Luke Daniel Davies