DINYAR WADIA

It is hard being voted the ugliest house in Darien, CT. But that was the case for a gray eyesore located on prime real estate, at the corner of Long Neck Point and Pear Tree Point. A brave middle-aged couple with a young daughter took on the task of turning this ugly duckling into a swan, but were at a loss when it came to the design. They called Dinyar Wadia of Wadia Associates to help solve their problem.

Dinyar met the couple at the site, and what he found was a horribly built house with an even worse exterior. The clients walked him through the property and described what they wanted to achieve. The list included a new stairway and hall, an open family/kitchen/breakfast room, and an office for the husband. The main issue, though, was the exterior, and Wadia used it as the driving force in the design. The back of the property, which faced the water and is seen by every passing boat, was flat, uninteresting and of no particular design genre. It also had an unbalanced and asymmetrical look. Adhering to design elements common in Darien, Dinyar sought to create a more traditional symmetrical home. This required thinking about how to remass the structure.

The existing house had a main floor that was cut up into separate spaces, with a playroom set apart from the rest of the house. Dinyar’s idea was to open it all up into one big space, and convert the playroom into an office. The office would then receive an addition that Wadia would recreate on the other side, for the breakfast room. To unify the house, Wadia added a center balcony, changed all the doors and windows, and reworked the attic to add dormers for an art studio. His next challenge was to explain and present these ideas to his clients. For most people, visualizing a 3D object is very difficult, so hand sketches illustrate what can’t be understood in a computer-generated elevation.

Wadia’s process is very simple: Once he gets to know the client and has learned all the limitations and regulations for the house and property, he begins to sketch. The main objective of the hand sketch is for communication purposes. It is important for the client to understand the rooms and connections, and how they relate to each other. For Dinyar, providing a hand sketch of the property and some interiors has always been part of his presentation to clients. He believes clients will have a stronger reaction to a hand sketch than they would to a computer-aided design elevation, which encourages discussion around the design and a quicker decision-making process. Wadia moves to the computer when he gets into the finer details of the plan and prepares the construction documents.

Wadia Associates

Dinyar Wadia

134 Main Street

New Canaan, CT 06840

203.966.0048 wadiaassociates.com