The system behind every home the firm designs: what it holds, how it works and how it differs.
The Meridian Engine is what Meridian Atelier knows about designing and building a home, written down and joined in one system.
It starts with who you are, checks every choice against how homes are built before anyone draws it, and puts one person in charge: the firm's Principal.
The whole engine, then its six parts: MAI, its own AI, at the centre; four branches of knowledge at the compass points; and the publications that share what it knows.
The compass turns as you scroll and lights the part you are reading. On a wide screen, choose a part to go to it.
How do its parts fit together?
Each part below holds one share of what the firm knows: how it works, what it designs, how homes are built, who leads the work and what it publishes. Every home draws on them all.
You work with one system instead of a chain of separate firms: what suits you, how your home is built and who leads it are worked out together, before construction begins.
Who keeps the engine in order?
MAI is the firm's own artificial intelligence. It keeps every record of the engine current and connected, prepares written drafts for the Principal and checks them against the firm's rules. The Principal directs it and approves its work.
The engine is only as good as the one driving it.
What you tell the firm is kept on record for your project, so you need not repeat yourself. Each choice reaches you with its reasons in writing, approved by the Principal.
Who is the home for?
The Method sets how a project runs, in four phases from the first conversation to the finished house. Before any design, the Diagnostic records how your household lives and measures each person on the Big Five, the five personality traits psychologists use.
You see the Diagnostic's findings, and the design direction they point to, before you commit to the design itself. Each phase starts only when the one before is complete.
(opens in a new tab)What should the home look like?
The Studio is the firm's design knowledge. Six design principles describe every part of a home, from its shape to its light, and each runs on a scale, such as straight to curved. Your measured personality guides where your home sits on each.
Your home is not given a house style. Its forms, light and materials are chosen for where your personality places you on each principle, and you see that reasoning before you decide.
(opens in a new tab)Will it stand, and will it last?
The Library is the firm's building knowledge: materials, ways of building, the trades and the safety checks. Its rules do not change with taste or personality, because physics and building codes do not. For example, the Los Angeles region's air-quality Rule 445 (source, opens in a new tab) bars wood-burning fireplaces in most new homes.
Problems that often surface only on site are settled on paper, and every material is weighed against your daily life: children, pets and the upkeep you are willing to give.
(opens in a new tab)Who leads the work?
The Firm is the practice itself and its Principal, a designer with fourteen years in construction who leads every project himself. The firm takes no margin on construction, and its fees do not rise with what the build costs.
You contract with the builder directly, and the firm holds no construction contract. The Principal signs the Design Codex, the drawings and schedules they build from, and manages their work for you.
(opens in a new tab)Where can I learn more?
The Publications share the engine's knowledge in plain words: journals from the Studio, articles from the Library, manifestos from the Method and folios from the Firm. They explain what the engine uses on every home.
You can read the ideas behind your home before your first conversation, and come back to them at any phase to understand a choice in depth.
(opens in a new tab)MAI keeps the firm's knowledge in order, so the Principal's attention stays on your home.
Its page explains what it does and how the firm uses AI.
Read about MAI
A home is commonly made in one of four ways: by a designer's taste and experience, from an architect's drawings, by a builder who hires a designer, or by one design-build company. Seven questions set the engine beside them.
A designer's taste and experience, applied to your brief.
A home drawn from your life: how you live and use each room. The process brings out what you want, even before you can name it.
With your wishes and the designer's eye.
With you: your personality, measured, how you live and where your home stands, so it fits no one else. The Principal guides; every decision stays yours.
Often found out after the drawings, when a builder prices them.
Settled before anything is drawn: each choice is checked against how it will be built and maintained, so the drawings reach the builder already checked.
From samples, showrooms and advice.
From evidence: each option is fitted to your measured traits and tested against how your household lives, and comes to you with its reasons in writing. You decide.
Designer, architect, engineers and builder each work apart, or one company designs and builds.
The Principal orchestrates every party from the first conversation to the finished house, as your advocate throughout: one person answerable for the whole.
The builder. In design-build, the company that designed your home also profits from building it.
The builder, not the firm: it takes no margin on construction, and its fee does not rise with the cost.
A portfolio of past homes to judge the firm by.
Its own engine: every rule, record and step written down and joined, the same records this website is built from, so you can read how your project will run before it starts.
What clients ask before they begin.
No. The Principal designs every home and makes every decision with you. MAI, the firm's own AI, keeps the engine's knowledge in order and prepares written drafts that he directs, edits and approves.
Yes. Every choice carries its reasons in writing: the traits it answers, the principle it follows and each safety check it meets. Within the building code, the final say is yours.
The Diagnostic measures you both and places each trait at one of three levels: high, low or balanced. Where you differ, the Principal designs the rooms you share toward the balanced level, to serve you both.
No. The firm holds no construction contract and takes no margin on construction. It charges to design your home and to manage its construction, and neither charge rises with what the build costs.
Because a change after the drawings travels between designer, builder and trades, and what is lost on the way can become rework. In a 2018 survey by FMI, a construction consultancy, and PlanGrid, a construction software maker, 599 U.S. construction leaders attributed 48 percent of rework to poor communication and poor project data.
The Principal leads it himself, from the first conversation to the finished house. Licensed contractors and their trades build the home from the Design Codex he signs, and he manages their work on your behalf.
With a first conversation with the Principal. Once you go ahead, the Diagnostic measures each person's traits and records how you live, before any design begins.
MAI has its own page, and three more pages describe the firm.
