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Every successful round home begins long before construction — with how the space is planned. How rooms relate to one another, how daylight moves through a circular plan, how circulation flows from one space to the next. That planning is the foundation everything else is built on. This page explains how Materia Studio approaches architectural design for round homes, and where that work fits alongside Smiling Woods Yurts, your structural engineer, and your contractor.
Materia Studio designs the architectural layout of the spaces you'll use every day — kitchens, bathrooms, lofts, and the living areas between them.
We design the size, location, and circulation of each space — how a kitchen opens to a living area, how a loft is reached, how a bathroom is placed for privacy without interrupting the flow of the plan. We also place the windows, doors, and major fixtures: the refrigerator, dishwasher, sink, range or cooktop, shower, toilet, and vanity.
Cabinetry and cabinet shop drawings are outside this scope — our layout establishes the framework a cabinet designer, manufacturer, or contractor then builds from. Detailed interior design and furniture selection are also outside standard scope, available only if specifically added.
A circular plan changes how rooms relate to one another. In a conventional home, rooms are typically arranged along straight hallways, with fairly fixed adjacencies. In a round home, spaces radiate from a shared center, so circulation tends to move around the plan rather than through a corridor — which changes how privacy, sightlines, and room-to-room relationships need to be planned from the very beginning.
Daylight and views behave differently too. Windows placed around a curved perimeter can bring light and views into a room from multiple directions at once, rather than from a single wall. Planning where light enters, and how one room's windows relate to its neighbors, is a different exercise than laying out a rectangular floor plan.
None of this changes what a kitchen, bathroom, or loft needs to do — it changes how those spaces are proportioned and arranged so the plan feels intentional rather than compromised. That's the planning work described on this page: translating a circular structure into rooms that work the way you expect a home to work.
Architectural Planning
The room-by-room layout described above: how spaces are sized, arranged, and connected, and where doors, windows, and fixtures are placed. This is the foundation every other drawing and decision builds on.
Architectural Drawings
A complete, coordinated set of architectural drawings — the Base Design Package's A-Set — developed to the point where it's ready to coordinate with your structural engineer and use for permitting and construction.
Visualization
One photorealistic exterior rendering, included with the Base Design Package, to help you see and communicate the design before construction begins. It's a visualization tool rather than a construction document; additional renderings are available separately if you'd like more.
Design Collaboration
Three included rounds of design revisions, each built around one consolidated round of your feedback. The goal is refining the design toward something you're ready to build, not open-ended exploration.
Materia Studio does not perform structural engineering — but we coordinate closely with your structural engineer, following a consistent process, so the result is one coordinated architectural and structural document set ready for permitting and construction.
Materia Studio develops the architectural design to a complete, coordinated A-Set.
The A-Set is submitted to your structural engineer for review.
The engineer reviews the design, performs the structural engineering, and recommends any modifications needed.
Materia Studio evaluates that feedback and incorporates the resulting revisions into the architectural drawings.
The engineer prepares the final, stamped structural documents.
Materia Studio performs a final architectural review to confirm the architectural and structural drawings are fully aligned before delivery.
What it is
Materia Studio's standard scope concludes with delivery of your fully coordinated architectural and structural document set — but our involvement doesn't necessarily end there. Construction Support is 12 months of continued access to Materia Studio after that delivery, to help make sure the documents keep serving you well as building begins.
What's included
During those 12 months, we're available to:
Answer reasonable questions about the drawings
Clarify architectural intent
Add dimensions, notes, or details where helpful
Make minor updates that improve how the approved design is communicated, without changing the design itself
Coordinate with your structural engineer if needed
After the included period
Construction Support is meant to answer questions and clarify intent — not to redesign the project. If a need falls outside that scope, or arises after the included 12 months, it's addressed as separately defined scope or at our standard hourly rate, so you always know where you stand.
A round home comes together through a small team of professionals, each responsible for a different part of the work.
Architectural design
Round-home building system
Independent structural engineering
Construction
Code and permit review
Project direction
Every project is a little different. When it makes sense, these are available alongside the Base Design Package:
Additional renderings — interior views, alternate exterior angles, animations, or presentation imagery
Cabinetry design, detailed interior design, furniture selection, or product specification
Additional design revision rounds beyond the three included
Extended Construction Support beyond the included 12 months
Every project starts with a conversation about how your home should be planned. Let's begin there.