The list of credits for the 18 Builder's Choice Awards Taylor Woodrow Homes has won since 1991 reads like a who's who of milestone projects and design partners, including fellow inductees Walt Richardson and Mark Scheurer. And, it underscores the builder's commitment to housing design in a production realm.
“We define and separate ourselves through design,” says Mike Forsum, Western regional president for the United Kingdom–based builder's North American operations, which delivered nearly 4,000 homes last year in four states. “We've stayed true to our roots of achieving and executing the authenticity of the design concepts [of our projects].”
But times are changing. A decade ago, Forsum recalls, builders nationwide traveled to Southern California to see the latest innovation from Taylor Woodrow Homes, helping the builder forge a distinct brand and a reputation for housing design with new concepts such as in-home wine cellars, master-suite retreats, and indoor-outdoor relationships that went beyond a porch and a patio. Today, the design bar has been set quite a bit higher industry-wide, and Forsum seeks to maintain Taylor Woodrow's leadership in this arena by using technology and research to ferret out new or refined concepts from prospective and new-home buyers.
“Buyers are coming in with a better idea of what they want as opposed to us convincing them of what they should want,” Forsum says. “It's incumbent upon us to talk to buyers ahead of the [design] process to gain a better understanding of what we need to create to facilitate their lifestyles.”
