There is a lot going on at the award-winning STITCH Dwellings. With both the commercial and residential sides of its business growing, the firm has launched STITCH Dwellings, a division focused solely on residential architecture and interior design. And it will soon launch a procurement division.
And in the first week of August, the 10-year-old firm will move into new headquarters, giving it 7,000 square feet of space for offices, meeting rooms and a sample library, plus an equally large lower level to house items the procurement division acquires for clients.
Design News Now recently chatted with Adam Sebastian, AIA architect and STITCH Design Shop founding partner, and Taylor Ghost, director of interior design, about the firm’s growth and plans for its future.
Invested in residential
STITCH is known for modern design and its high-profile commercial work, including the new Kaleideum children’s museum, the Bailey South complex at Innovation Quarter and the Art for Art’s Sake Center for the Arts, all in downtown Winston-Salem, where the firm is based. (The firm also has offices in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Boone, North Carolina.)
In the works on the commercial side is a major renovation of the historic Hanes House at the North Carolina Museum of Art Winston-Salem to bridge the historic and modern while improving accessibility. Other current big commercial projects include an entertainment and hospitality complex in nearby Greensboro and multifamily housing in downtown Winston-Salem.
But the firm got its start in the residential realm and has never left that work behind, building a strong portfolio of projects, including a row of modern homes. Set in the heart of West Salem, one of the city’s older, bungalow-filled neighborhoods, the houses drew plenty of attention.
The launch of STITCH Dwellings, Sebastian says, gives the residential part of the firm’s business its own identity and will help it expand into the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) east of Winston-Salem and into an area west of the city known as the High Country, which is rich with vacation and second homes.
“We’re just really excited about having taken the very distinguished brand of STITCH Design Shop and parlaying that into STITCH Dwellings and then taking that on the road across the state,” he says.
Much of STITCH’s residential comes to the firm via word of mouth and also from happy commercial clients who have then hired the firm to build or renovate their homes. But STITCH will be doing some targeted marketing, including ads in print shelter publications, to promote the new residential division.
The firm generally has 5-10 large residential projects in the works, in addition to smaller interior design projects. Its new procurement arm will allow it to provide a true turnkey service to residential clients, from architecture to interior design to the sourcing of all the furnishings, accessories and other items clients need for their home “down to the doorbell,” Ghost says.
The 21-person STITCH team includes seven interior designers. To support STITCH Dwellings’ growth, the firm recently hired interior designer Anna Camille VandeVen, who reports to Ghost.
Although the firm expects STITCH Dwellings to help it build its business in other parts of North Carolina, it already has residential design customers far beyond Winston-Salem, from Utah to Montreal.
Clarity, creativity and confidence
STITCH Dwellings might be new, but it is grounded in the firm’s three-part client experience: clarity, creativity and confidence, Sebastian says. Clarity starts with the initial fact finding as the team meets with clients to understand their story, needs and desires. Creativity involves designing a space that is unique to each client. Then, as plans come together, the firm instills confidence in clients by turning to virtual reality.
“When someone is building a home, they’re nervous. They’re scared. It’s the biggest investment they are ever going to make,” Sebastian says. “And our job is to manage their expectations and guide them through what is a very nerve-wracking process. And we understand that because we’ve built our own homes, too. We know how they are feeling. (With VR), we’re able to walk them virtually through their house before we pour a foundation, before we hammer a nail.
“… It’s powerful. … We’ve had clients take the goggles off and they’re teary-eyed. The clients feel like, ‘This is exactly what I want. They heard me. This looks amazing.’ So, they’re no longer nervous. They’re excited. For someone building a home, (the VR walk-through) is priceless.”
STITCH also uses VR to introduce clients to their new furnishings. “For interiors, we’ll walk them through several times as we finalize furniture and other details,” Ghost says. “Clients will come to us and say, ‘Can I pop into my library again?’ They just want to stand there and enjoy the space. It makes it extremely personal and ‘real.’ I love that we’re able to give people that clarity, every step of the way.”
STITCH’s new headquarters has an entire room devoted to its VR experience.
“We love to hire folks that have an incredible technical acumen,” Ghost says. “We have wonderful designers who also really understand how to mock things up and bring them into a model.”
Happy clients over accolades
STITCH has won more than 25 commercial and residential design awards, but such accolades are a nice perk of the work, not a goal, Sebastian says.
“One of our clients, when we first started work with him, pulled me aside, and said, ‘So, is this an award winner?’ It kind of caught me off guard because our goal isn’t to win awards,” Sebastian says. “Our goal, at the end of the day, is to make the client happy. If you’ve got a smile on your face and you are living a happy life in your new home, that’s the goal. … Design is a two-way street and we’re constantly communicating. What makes you tick? What’s going to make this house better for you? And then we land on something that probably neither of us ever imagined in the beginning.”
