Collaborate Architecture

Holly Trick of Collaborate Architecture was wonderful to work with in designing our home in Panama (Venao House on Collaborate Architecture's website). We had a general idea of what we wanted for features but really needed an expert to design a house that would meet our needs. She took the time to listen and understand our needs, tastes, zoning requirements and environment. She first started by presenting several floorplans to better understand and vet what we liked and didn't like, which helped us tremendously in pinpointing a floorplan that was efficient and comfortable. Next, she presented several designs based on our chosen floorplan, which again, helped us pinpoint a design that met our tastes and zoning requirements. There were many considerations that we did not even know to think about that Holly brought to our attention. For instance, she researched the annual local weather and how the sunrise and sunsets would hit the house, which influenced details such as roof overhangs, location and size of windows, lighting considerations, etc. What really helped us select and tweak the final design is her use of 3D rendering and "walk through" of the house so we can visualize the flow and floorplan. Holly even went so far as to produce an electrical plan layout so we could see which switches controlled which lights and fans, the A/C layout, etc., which allowed us to further refine how we wanted to control these items. Through the build, Holly continued to support us when we wanted to add/change a design feature or when we ran into hurdles with certain capability limits of building in Panama. Our overall experience with Holly was wonderful and she truly "Collaborates" with you to design a house of your dreams. If we have the opportunity to build another home, we would definitely partner with Holly again!