Edward Andrews Homes, Atlanta, opened a new design center in Alpharetta, Ga., as part of the custom home builder’s initiative to simplify the complicated process of design and selection.
The facility opened during early December and is one piece of what the company is branding as the ExAct Design Experience, which uses digital technology and 3-D renderings to help buyers think through and create their home before construction.
“Traditionally, custom builders have relied on room vignettes and walls of sample displays to guide the design process, which easily can overwhelm buyers with options,” said Edward Andrews Homes CEO Paul Corley. “Our new design center is poised to change the custom home market by using digital technologies to re-imagine the custom building process — from one that is complicated, costly, and unpredictable to one that is simplified and managed, with no surprises.”
Custom home buyers are easily overwhelmed with the abundance of decisions they must make for selecting colors, patterns, and other options during the design process. After adding proprietary features to 2020 Design software, Edward Andrews launched about a year ago an online effort that prepares clients for selecting elements for their home in phases before stepping into the design studio. First they complete an entertaining Style Quiz that analyzes their preferences and categorizes them into one of 16 design archetypes. Next is an interactive Lifestyle Questionnaire that identifies how the home will be lived in by its owners.
The preferences buyers expressed on those quizzes are used to refine from thousands of choices to just the hundreds that are presented to them through the Sample Closet, a digital catalog of options. Then they work with designers to consult about structural and exterior designs before making their picks for the kitchen, master bath, exteriors, windows, cabinets and countertops, plumbing and lighting, and interiors. The program creates 3-D renderings of space and the house. If clients don’t like the look, they can change their choices online and generate a new image.
“All that data goes into the customer management software, and the designers, instead of starting from scratch with the buyers selections for the second or third meeting, has those choices set up from the software homework that (the clients) did and funnels options from 5,000 to a couple hundred based on what they said they like for color, texture, organic, geometric, and so on,” says Caroline Simmel, senior vice president of marketing. In addition to simplifying the selection process, the ExAct Design experience aims to give clients confidence in their choices as Edward Andrews does not accept change orders once construction begins. (Click here to read more about how Edward Andrews implemented its change order policy).