
We started serving middle-class America and discovered that there was a large part of the population that wanted a better house design but didn’t know that architects were the people to go to - mostly because architects were known, at the time, for building big, expensive houses. What prompted you to write The Not So Big House? I moved to Minnesota shortly after I graduated from the University of Oregon, and started my own firm with a partner. I was always really interested in house design.

Why did they have it if they weren’t going to sit on it? That precipitated an interest in architecture, and I ended up going to architecture school. In some of my friends’ houses, the living room and dining room furniture still had plastic covers on. One of the things that I noticed right away was that a lot of the space in American houses seemed to go unused. In England, things are a little bit smaller in terms of house design. What inspired you to become an architect? I grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1971, so I was a teenager at the time. Mother Earth News spoke with Sarah about her philosophy of “not so big” and how it relates to architecture and lifestyle. Ten years ago, she wrote The Not So Big House, which has recently been updated. Sarah Susanka is an architect and author. Homemade Cheese Recipes: Cheese Making Articles.Sustainable Farming & Agriculture Articles.

