Breathing New Life into Old Spaces: An Adaptive Reuse Case Study
The Albemarle Building, constructed in 1905, originally served as a hotel. In the 1980s, it was renovated into a law office. Today, the upper floors have been converted into boutique apartments, offering elegant contemporary living in th...
We’ve Moved in 2022
We are excited to announce that GARC has moved into our long-term home at 112 Granby St. Suite 400 in downtown Norfolk since September 2022. This was determined after a lengthy search for a new office location that could meet our...
HRACRE Design Awards
GARC won two HRACRE design awards this year! Got Fish? for Best Recreation/Entertainment/Hospitality Project Merit Award and Get Well Soon for Best Interior Excellence Award. We want to thank our clients for the opportunities of...
Q&A #4: What are the high ROI items?
In the last Q&A, we talked about how to find balance between the investment of a home renovation and the return in both monetary value and in the value to the quality of life. If we are only evaluating Return On Investment (ROI) in a mon...
Q&A #3: Can I recoup the investment on my renovation project?
Unlike flipping a house, which is evaluated purely by investment and return, renovating a home can not be judged solely by how much the property value increases. For example, in Remodeling Magazine’s “Cost vs. Value Report 2020”, t...
Q&A #2: Should I renovate or rebuild?
We usually get this question when a client really likes the location of the house, but not happy with the actual building itself. The costs of a major renovation might be closer to building a new house from scratch. In that case, should ...
Q&A #1: How do I phase my project?
The direct answer is yes, if doing a major renovation project, we can most certainly split the project into phases. When creating the plans for each phase, we will work together with you to figure out what the most pressing needs are an...
How to Check the Zoning Requirements for Your Project
In our previous article post, we discussed the Three Things to Check Before Buying and Renovating a House in the Hampton Roads area. To make a long story short, those three things are: Zoning, Floodplain Ordinance and the Chesapeake Bay ...
Working From Home – Challenges and Solutions
After staying at home for more than a month, the challenges of WFH are starting to reveal themselves. One significant challenge many people are finding is how to separate work and personal life, as this was previously separated by their ...
Connecting Dots
Our clients from Get Well Soon sent us this piece writing about their business. Thanks for the shout out to our design! “The duo relied on Norfolk-based architects, GARC Design, to help create all of the interior drawings and rendering...
Merry Christmas & Happy New Decade!
2019 has been a fruitful year for GARC. We have been fortunate to work with both returning and new clients throughout 2019. This year we accomplished around 20 Vision Workshops & Feasibility Studies. We have two commercial projects compl...
Three Things to Check Before Buying and Renovating a House
We recently held another successful Vision Workshop for a single family house in the Oceanfront of Virginia Beach. The house is a lovely mid-century modern home on a corner lot that our client purchased not long ago. After studying the z...
Feasibility Study – Jumpstart your commercial project
Are you looking to start your own business and need an inspiring space? Perhaps you have two spaces in mind but not sure which one will align better with your business plan? Maybe you want to renovate your current space to attract more...
Happy Fall!
Our summer was jam packed with exciting projects. Check out some of the recent projects that we have been working on in the Hampton Roads area since our last report. We are so excited for Patrick and Maria at the Ruff House Stay and Play...
Kitchen Is The New Center – Part 2
After World War II, Art & Arts magazine commissioned many major architects of the day to design and build homes. The popular/acclaimed “Case Study House Program” ran intermittently between 1945 to 1966 and “sought to respond to po...
Creating A Prototype For A Simple Food Restaurant
Opened this past October, our most recent restaurant project, Honoka Teriyaki Express, is located at the intersection of Indian River and Kempsville road. As Honoka Teriyaki Express is the first one of this teriyaki chain restaurant, it...
Kitchen Is The New Center – Part 1
Over 90 percent of residential projects that come our way include the kitchen. The project can involve opening up the kitchen to living area, enlarging it to allow for a multi-function space, or even building an outdoor kitchen to create...
