The current issue of dwell magazine includes an essay entitled "What We Talk About When We Talk About Good Design".  What, indeed, is good design? 

The piece aptly points out that the term is as naïve as it is loaded (surely, too, the same might be said of "good taste" but we'll leave that argument to Martha Stewart and Charley the Tuna).

To prime your pump, quoting from the article:  It suggests such an apparent universality that any of us should be able to spot it.  But implicit in "good design" is a system of values, aesthetics and objects that demonstrate that the seemingly innocuous little term is anything but.

From a remodeling architectural designer's standpoint - particularly in traditionally-inclined Richmond, VA - we struggle with this daily.  Would "good design" mean that an addition faithfully replicates its Georgian substrate to achieve the effect of "looks as if it has always been there", or be of its own time?  Is good architectural design comfortably familiar, or intellectually stimulating?  Are there implications of correct style, form, proportion, orderliness (or the rejection of these) that may somehow be more or less important than function or accommodation?

The questions and issues continue ad infinitum.  The little piece I would like to take-on here (in keeping with the subject matter of this blog), would be relative to residential design, especially regarding remodeling.  Please weigh-in with your responses to "what is good design?"

---