It all started with me marking up my architecture books to show the style I liked and writing down some requirements. Erika agreed to take on the design. This design concept was called "The Well" and was chosen from three initial design proposals. I asked Erika to provide a blurb to describe the design:

The concept for this design stems from the historical practice of water switching. This gift is said to run deep through the blood of families from one generation to the other. Being from a family of water switchers, the client felt that it was important for him to be the one to select the site for the well. The technique of water switching entails using a ‘Y’-shaped stick (holding it by the 2 arms of the ‘Y’) and walking with it horizontally out in front of you. When there is water present the stem of the ‘Y’ points down towards the earth.

Using the image of this ‘Y’-shaped stick, the house unfolded into 3 parts with the front tower being the stem of the ‘Y’. The tower then became the grounding point of the house—the place where water, and therefore life, existed. Thinking of this as the location of the well, the tower emerged as this vertical element upon which the rest of the house depended. It became the central living space, the space which would capture light, warmth, and life. The double height space surrounding the fireplace is used to emphasize the verticality of the tower along with the steel chimney that extends up beyond the physical space of the house. This space is the gathering room of the house. On the second floor the space of the tower connects 2 sleeping rooms.

The exterior language of the Residence (Perkins Farm) is taken from the surrounding farm buildings. The red steel cladding of the main part of the house and the corrugated galvanized steel of the tower, are industrial-like in their typical applications, but are brought to a residential scale in the detailing of this project.

The house overlooks the historical relics of a former Perkins family farmhouse. The old stone foundation is a focal point for the new house as is the church in the distance and the rolling green hills of the Perth area. Some of the stone from the foundation will be used as cladding for the fireplace in the new house; a way of bringing some of the stories of the past into the present stories being written at Perkins Farm.