Sentient Architecture, LLC was a full service architecture firm with offices in Round Top and Austin, Texas led by its Managing Partner, award-winning designer Christopher K. Travis. In 2010, Mr. Travis returned to his design.build roots at Truehome Design.Build. and no longer practices within that architecture firm. Visit Truehomedesignbuild.com to learn more about his current design and construction services.In 2015, he move his primary operations to Pine, Colorado where he serves mountain communities adjacent to Denver, and Southwest Denver as a design.build company with office in Pine, Colorado and Evergreen, Colorado. though he continues to serve both the South Central Texas counties of Fayette, Colorado, Lee, Bastrop, Austin and Washington counties in Texas as a design firm but no longer offers construction services there. He also considers major projects in resort areas across the nation and in remote areas.
Mr. Travis is not a registered architect, though he has always been the Owner, managing Partner, and lead designer for his firms, but for much of his career he partnered with registered professionals, first as Round Top Architecture, then in Sentient Architecture, LLC. His firm was previously named “Remodeler of the Year” by the Greater Houston Builder’s Association. One of his projects in the Houston Heights was a winner of the TC Jester Award for Historic Design. Ironically, Sentient Architecture was named South Central Texas “Full Service Architecture Firm of the Year” in 2016, after it was no longer an active architecture firm, by Builder Magazine and in 2017 was awarded a Global Innovation Award for his use of human factors science in design by the British publication, Acquisition International.
Sentient Architecture’s residential projects were designed by Mr. Travis and built by either him, or his son, Shiloh Travis, have been published in many national publications including Country Living, Builder Magazine and the New York Times. Its approach to design has been covered by publications in Greece, Germany, Australia, Spain, the U.S. and in South America. Additional projects can be viewed on Pinterest and Facebook.
Mr. Travis employs a unique design process developed over his long career. It is known as Truehome®. Truehome is a systematic approach for creating homes that are suited to the unique psychology, lifestyle, tastes, values and life goals of their inhabitants. It arose from a simple insight.
When people seek to change their living space, their true goal is to change their lives for the better. Truehome empowers its clients to reliably accomplish that goal. The process is patent-pending as a software product and Travis holds a national trademark for the name “Truehome.”.
The Truehome approach is scientific and based in neuroscience, psychology and systems theory. It calls for the designer to think of designing a living space as an ecosystem that is fitting for its inhabitants. Truehome is related to the view within health care architecture called Evidence Based Design – which proposes that evidence from the sciences should be considered by architects in the design of structures. Both views propose that such methods lead to buildings that support well being – or said another way – to therapeutic architecture.
Mr. Travis has taken that approach even further. Using a variety of techniques, he helps clients discover their unique “experience of home” – and working together as a team – to create a home that fits the life they want to live. Truehome® is multi-disciplinary approach that also borrows techniques from human factors disciplines like user experience, user interface studies, ergonomics, environmental psychology, design anthropology and decision science.
The process is well established. For over two decades, many real world projects have been designed and built using it to good effect. In addition to delivering what people truly want more reliably, it helps consumers identify and prioritize their goals more effectively, thereby saving time and money.
Mr. Travis is also committed to green, sustainable, human-centered design and a pragmatic approach that considers managing a budget and value engineering to be a central responsibility of a designer. The firm has the experience to accomplish this because for most of his career Mr. Travis and his companies designed and built most of their projects.
Christopher K. Travis and Shiloh Travis work in a wide variety of architectural styles and on a wide variety of projects – from high end estates, ranches, resort homes and custom homes, to religious, historic and commercial projects. With all their clients, whatever the project,the goal remains the same – to identify the vision of their clients and deliver it in a way that is sustainable, beautiful and fitting.