Tour of Homes: Best Year Yet

This year's success can be attributed to a number of factors: the stellar line up of homes, the generous sponsors, fantastic volunteers, and extensive media coverage. As co-chair of the Tour of Homes committee, I really wanted to see a diversity in the type of homes featured. Often the public thinks that hiring an architect is for projects that come with a $500/sf price tag and 10,000 sf or more, but in truth, architects provide a variety of services beyond that. Our committee of architects reviewed all applications, visited all of the homes submitted, and decided on the specific homes to be featured this year. As a committee, we still picked the large contemporary homes that everyone likes to see, but we also decided on renovations and smaller jewels designed by AIA Dallas architects. We liked homes that were 6,000 sf and those that were 1,600 sf and the public resoundingly agreed by showing up in our highest attendance recorded to date, over 2,600. Showcasing a diversity of architects and home styles was the right choice.

The architects’ work featured on this year’s tour received great amount of press coverage and we hope that architects will continue to see the value of submitting their work goes beyond the tour patrons alone and is really about elevating the profession and communicating the value of hiring an architect to the public. Press highlights include an Arts & Life story in The Dallas Morning News, a preview on CultureMap, and a daily blog post series with D Home, where we unveiled each of the nine homes on the tour.

We look forward to seeing you on our 2015 tour!