I've Designed for the 1% and for Disaster Survivors. Here's What Both Groups Taught Me.

I've spent thirty years moving between worlds that most people assume are opposites. One day I'm in a boardroom reviewing millwork details for a private residence where the budget could fund a small municipal building. The next, I'm standing in the mud of a flood zone, helping a family figure out how to store what little they have left.

We often imagine these worlds as parallel lines that never touch. One is about the curation of excess; the other is about the restoration of the essential. Yet, when you strip away the velvet curtains and the plywood bracing, the fundamental questions of design remain stubbornly the same. What is this space really for? Who is it serving? And how do we move from the chaos of "want" to the clarity of "need"?

The Paradox of More

Designing for the most affluent segment of society — the "1 percent" — is rarely about the physical objects themselves. It is an exercise in cutting through the noise. When every material is available and every whim is feasible, the challenge is not one of resource, but of discernment.

In luxury environments, we often see a flawed status quo: the belief that a surplus of features creates a sense of home. But a home is not a collection of high-tech appliances or impervious surfaces. It is a vessel for life. I've sat across from clients who could buy anything, and watched them struggle to articulate what they actually wanted. The hardest part of that work wasn't sourcing materials. It was helping someone slow down enough to realize they didn't need another bathroom — they needed a window that caught the morning light.

At this high end, human-centered design becomes a process of stripping away the performative to find the contemplative. I have found that the most successful projects are those where the client finally stops asking, "What else can I have?" and begins to ask, "What allows me to be present?"

The Dignity of Constraint

Shift the scene to a community ravaged by a hurricane or a flood. Here, the constraints are absolute. The resources are finite. The urgency is visceral. In disaster recovery, design is not a luxury; it is a life-raft.

In these moments, the most honest conversations happen. There is no room for irony or pretension when you are discussing how to store a family's remaining memories in a ten-by-ten space. Yet, even in these extreme conditions, the human spirit demands more than mere survival. It demands dignity.

I've worked on disaster recovery where the only "design brief" was a FEMA trailer and a family of five. In those conditions, you learn fast that good design isn't about what you add — it's about what you refuse to take away. A family's sense of dignity is not a bonus feature. It's the whole point.

Whether developing community recovery plans or individual recovery plans, the goal is the same: to create a sense of agency where it has been stripped away. A well-designed temporary shelter is not just about keeping the rain out; it is about providing a threshold that says, you are still a person of value. Both the coastal villa and the recovery unit require us to ask: how does this environment respect the inhabitant?

The Three Lessons of the Grounded Visionary

Through these extremes — the estate and the shelter, the marble and the mud — three truths have stayed with me.

• Alignment over Aesthetics: A space that looks beautiful but functions poorly is a failure of character. True sustainable architecture trends are moving away from the "look" of green design and toward the "soul" of resilience: buildings that align with the person, the place, and the purpose.
• Listening as a Radical Act: Most people do not know what they want because they are distracted by what they think they should have. My role is to listen for the silence between the words. Whether it is a CEO or a survivor, the true need is usually found in the things they don't think to mention: the light in the morning, the sound of the wind, the need for a quiet corner to think.
• The Humility of the Observer: We do not impose design upon a landscape; we inhabit it. Like the willow bending over a river, a successful design must be flexible enough to withstand the storm and grounded enough to stay rooted in the soil.

Building the Brave New World

As we look toward the future of sustainable urban planning, we must apply the lessons of both excess and lack. Our cities need the refinement and thoughtfulness of high-level design, but they also require the hard-won resilience and community focus found in disaster response.

I see this intersection in the work I do now — whether I'm writing about watershed thinking or helping a small town rethink its Main Street. The lens is the same. It's always about connecting the built, the wild, and the cultivated.

These intersections appear in the revitalization of our small towns and the densification of our watersheds. We are not just building structures; we are building the civic will to inhabit our environment more thoughtfully.

Closing the Loop

Design is an honest accounting of our values. Whether I am drafting a concept for a multi-million dollar estate, brainstorming on a document-readiness campaign for disaster preparedness, or working with a community faced with remaking itself, the underlying mission remains unchanged: to foster a sense of belonging, capability, beauty, and calm.

That's not a mission statement I wrote in a marketing meeting. It's what I've actually done, project after project, for three decades. The scale changes. The clients change. The fundamental question doesn't.

The person, the community, and the environment are a single, inseparable system.

When we design for one with the lessons of the other, we create a world that is not just "better," but more human. We realize that the tools for a sustainable future already exist: they are found in the quiet observation of our needs and the courageous willingness to act on them.