AI Global Excellence Awards 2016

50 Acquisition International - Global Excellence Awards 2016 Christopher K. Travis is the Managing Partner of Sentient Architecture, LLC and the lead designer and owner of the design/build company, Truehome Design.Build. The firms’ primary focus is on high-end residential, human-centered design in various building and customer types, and historic restoration. The firm relocated in 2015 to the mountain foothills of Denver, Colorado, and before that, designed and built diverse projects in Texas beginning in 1974. Truehome Design Build continues to serve Texas customers, as well as those in Colorado. In early 2016, Sentient Architecture, LLC was named “Full Service Architecture Firm of the Year” for South Central Texas by Build Magazine. Previously it won the TC Jester Award for historic design, and its construction operations were named “Remodeler of the Year” by the Greater Houston Builders’ Association. Travis says he is honoured to be a recipient of Acquisition International’s Global Excellence Awards in the category of Human Centered Design. He says, “We believe our long experience with human- centered design, and our methods that combine psychology with architectural programming, are our most important contributions to design practice. It is nice to be honoured for these innovations after all these years.” After over twenty years as a designer and builder, in early 1998, Travis and his firm took a major leap away from traditional practice. He created an architectural programming workshop that used psychologically-informed methods and exercises to develop human-centered criteria for his designs. He began to use it with a majority of his clients. After two years of using that approach with approximately 60% of his clients, his firm was able to compare the outcomes with those customers, and the roughly 40% of clients who preferred traditional methods. That analysis showed that his new approach reduced his production costs by almost 35% on average, because it significantly increased the percentage of his first round designs that were accepted. Because the highly individualized process led to more intimate relationships with clients, it strongly enhanced client retention, and the long-term satisfaction of his customers. Travis then began a long term study to determine why the approach had been so effective, while continuously expanding and refining the process he had created. In 2002, he launched a two year study during which he included a clinical psychologist in some client programming session, and a marriage and family therapist in others. Having validated its effectiveness during that period, the firm no longer took clients who would not participate in its ground- breaking approach. In 2008, Travis began a long-term collaboration with highly-cited British personality psychologist Sam Gosling, Ph.D., now at The University of Texas at Austin. He is an expert in how personality is displayed in living and work spaces. Gosling reviewed Travis’ workshop, and interviewed a number of his clients in their homes. He was impressed, and included Travis’ approach in his popular science book, Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You, then began research focused on the completed client workbooks that informed Travis’ designs. That inclusion sparked media about Travis and his methods, including two major articles in the New York Times, Go Magazine, the BBC, in Welt Der Wunder in Germany, NRS Handelsblad in the Netherlands, and the Sidney Morning Herald in Australia. Gosling and Travis are now collaborating on a book about what they have come to call “the psychology of space.” Travis was also included in the yearly architecture magazine, Hommes, published by the largest daily newspaper in Athens, Greece, and named one of a select group of the world’s most important trendsetters in architecture. Over the years, Mr. Travis, has become a recognized expert on human-centered design. He was asked by Gizmodo to analyse the psychological aspects of Steve Jobs house plans before his death, and lectured at the Center for Health Systems and Design at the Texas A & M architecture school, at the national convention of the American Anthropological Association, before numerous professional and academic audiences. In late 2016, Travis was a guest lecturer at the international Company: Truehome Design. Build and Sentient Architecture, LLC Name: Christopher K. Travis Email: Christopher.travis@ truehome.net or cktravis@ sentientarchitecture.com Web: truehomedesignbuild.com Address: 16070 South Elk Creek Road, Pine, Colorado, 80470 Phone: Colorado – 303-838-0888 Texas – 979-249-5961 Discover Your Truehome A 1702AI51 “We are proud of our small part in creating a future where the wellbeing of people, and the planet we inhabit, is the central focus of design .”