McDonald Architects, LLC

09/28/2026

This Labor Day, McDonald Architects wanted to share two things through the attached image progression.

First, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who brings the homes we design to life: our clients, the builders and their talented crews and trades, the interior designers and their teams, the landscape architects and their teams, and the many others too numerous to name. We're grateful to every one of you.

Second, we wanted to share this home in The Settlement on Kiawah Island that is being built by Buffington Homes with interiors by Riverside Designs and landscape architecture by Wertimer + Cline. In the coming months, we hope to share more of this home's progress.
Happy Labor Day!
Chad McDonald

09/28/2026

We wanted to include a few more images in this progression from the more contemporary house in The Preserve on Kiawah Island. The house is located a wide but shallow marsh front property. The Screened porch and outdoor kitchen were placed in the west to take advantage of the long view towards the Stono Inlet down the march cove where the afternoon light will wash the landscape in yellows, reds and golds. The primary bedroom is on the east end and looks west down the marsh cove and will enjoy the wash of the morning sun on the marsh. Both of these spaces are in simple, rotated shed room forms to open these rooms to the sky as well. The butterfly roof over the living and dining areas and the 12 ft tall glass wall that stretches from the east to the west continues in the more intimate space of the kitchen. Because of the orientation of the main body of the house, the light from the summer setting sun will enter softly through the high clerestory windows on the front of the house.

Happy Labor Day! And again, thank you so very to everyone involved in bringing the homes we design for our clients to life.

Chad McDonald
McDonald Architects

09/28/2026

We wanted to share this interesting project that will start construction soon. It is an interior property on Kiawah Island. As a result, it doesn’t have a grand golf or marsh view. So, the challenge was how to really create something special here.

We approached this design by referencing and reimagining some Lowcountry centric vernacular elements: Specifically, the forms are the gabled form of the Single House, the shed form common in more rural vernacular architecture and the previously mentioned hyphen that links the primary bedrooms on the left of the stair tower (a reimagined hyphen) and another hyphen that links the main living areas on the right with the four-season room in the rear. In the four-season room the dramatic folding glass walls that lift to open the four-season room to the swimming pool terraces and garden terraces stretched out below. The stair tower, which acts as the entry on the ground and first floors, is the lynch pin to the flow of the home. It connects the walled garden and garden porch to the lower pool terrace with the endless edge basin to the higher ground and first floors. This allows the home, which is more modest in size than some Kiawah houses, to seemingly expand and contract and accommodate the clients’ needs when their extended family visits and the clients are entertaining friends or it is just the two of them.

We hope you will agree that this home is an essay of form, light and space where the seasons are enjoyed through the ebb and flow of daily life and the building forms actively define and connect those outdoor rooms to the interior rooms. The images shared are from building information software – black and white, and color – that are from our primary design software and AI enhanced rendering of those images to help articulate the feel we are working towards. The writing here, such as it is, is not.

We are very excited to be working with @ Maragret Donald Interiors, +Cline and Andrew Toele on this project. Every home should be special. It doesn’t take a grand view. It does take careful crafting and thought. We are very grateful to our clients for trusting McDonald Architects on this journey.

09/28/2026

We wanted to share this Shingle Style home that is under construction in Cassique that has views of the Kiawah River and Captain Sam's Spit. Again, we are sharing progressing images that include black and white design perspectives, BIM renderings, enhanced BIM renderings and construction photos. We hope this offers some insight into our design process and how it relates to the finished home. We cannot wait till this is completed. We will be sharing images from the interior soon!

08/01/2026

07/02/2026

Newly completed home in Ocean Park, Kiawah Island, SC. Just in time for our clients to celebrate the 4th of July Holiday with family and friends!