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Architect and author Sarah Susanka is the leading proponent of the "away room," the "place of quiet remove," the "place of your own." Her first book, The Not So Big House (Taunton, 1998, $30), argued for quality over quantity in our homes. Instead of vast square footage with no soul, she advocated smaller spaces of comfort, detail and character.
Today's homes, Susanka says, are full of noise generators: TVs, stereos, computer games; cathedral ceilings, open balconies, wide-open great rooms. Older homes have the opposite problem: lots of small, closed-off rooms that make it hard for family members to get together. "Someone preparing a meal is . . . separated from the rest of the family, or everyone crowds into the small kitchen," she says in her new book, Home by Design: Transforming Your House into Home (Taunton, 2004, $35).
What's needed, she writes, is a balance. She prefers a house with some wide-open gathering places, such as the kitchen; alcoves for associated activity where family members can be together although they may be engaged in different activities (doing homework, sending e-mail, reading the paper); and a third space "separated by at least a closable door for quieter activities."
A house "designed around our needs for varying levels of privacy and publicness," Susanka writes, "will be far more livable and will arguably even improve relationships among household members."