Form Function Studio

10/22/2026

Standing in the kitchen now. The sink, overlooking the back porch, double hung windows designed to allow for an easy pass through for meals and drinks. The entire kitchen cabinet layout has a design soffit to be anchored to before the vault changes the scale of the room.
What I'm excited about is what happens next: the range moment, centered and aligned directly with the hearth on the backside. Two gathering points. Two sources of warmth and life in the home. Mirrored. Intentional. What makes these anchors so strong is that everything around the home converges into them. No where else do you interact with the living room and kitchen first.

Corridors carry natural light back to bedrooms. The fireplace waits. Every decision we've made here is supporting the life that comes next—the family meals, the quiet mornings, the stretched holiday moments where everyone shows up.

But what I want to talk about most is working with D. McGrane Builders. They show up with humility and the same commitment to the work that I do. That's not just competence. That's character. That's what it means to build something real together—when your contractor is thinking about the people who'll live here, not just the project. What hasn't been told in the stories shared is the amount of mess ups we make as a studio. We are human. Perfectly imperfect. But by the grace of God, and his giftings for us, we get to continue to take steps in stewarding a project. We are just extremely thankful that Dean and his team have the same approach.

This is what I believe architecture should be. The builder and the architect speaking the same language. Humility on the job site. Everyone designing and carrying out excellence for the people, not the project.

What does it mean to you when someone takes ownership like that?

10/20/2026

Two simple shapes settle into a Lake MacBridge peninsula. A central spine moves you from the kitchen straight through to the water. Sunrise porch. Sunset patio. Every room is postioned with one thing in mind: toward the lake. The architecture is honest about what matters here. It's not the building. It's the water. It's the landscape meeting the water. It's the days spent outside vs inside.

This is a home built for arrivals. Cedar Rapids family coming down for the summer evenings, weekends, or somewhere inbetween, stretched long as you can manage them. Adult children and growing families under one roof again, the kind of gathering that only happens when you're away from everything else. We made room for all of that—for the quiet mornings on the porch, for the kitchen that becomes the center of everything, for the rainy afternoons when you're grateful to be inside together.

The materials we chose—a traditional German Schmear brick, painted cedar lap siding cedar, and that Royal Canadian cedar shake roof, they're built to weather seasons. To get better as summers pass. The wood will silver. The brick will deepen. Each summer leaves its mark on the home and it's craft.

What does a summer at the lake mean to your family?

Architect of Record: Form Function Studio | Consulting Architect: STILL Architecture + Design | Interior Design: Form Function Studio | Contractor: Peyton Construction

10/14/2026

Most homes compress everything. Living, dining, kitchen all melted together. The slice of bread approach.

These clients wanted something different. A compressed living and kitchen where their daily life actually happens, yes. But then the dining room sitting separate. Generous. Waiting.

Here's what makes it remarkable: when the family arrives for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, for those stretched moments that hold the holidays, the dining room expands into the kitchen. They move, they gather, they navigate around the island, around the living room furniture, and it still works. It still feels intentional. It doesn't feel crowded. It feels abundant.

This is what we call the 3%. Growth in our craft. A design that serves the everyday, intimate, efficient, real, and then stretches to hold something bigger. That's what elevating the everyday actually means. It's not about polishing the ordinary. It's about making space for both the quiet mornings and the rooms full of people you love.

Design that breathes with how you actually live.

When you think about your home, what moments matter most to you?

10/12/2026

The hug doesn't stop at the door.

That cedar soffit you see outside? It follows you in. Same finish, same warmth. The slate that greets you on the porch continues underfoot as you cross the threshold. It's not a hard edge between outside and in, it's a conversation. Exterior becomes interior becomes home.

Paul walks us into a nine-foot vestibule first. A breath before the space opens. And then the living room vaults above you... fourteen, fifteen feet of pure geometry. The ceiling rises, but it's not busy. Just three and a half inch monopoint heads for light, set clean against the wood. No fuss. No showing off. Just presence.

This is restraint as design language. Every material choice, every scale shift, every finish, it's all saying the same thing: we've thought about how you'll move through this space.

What makes you feel truly at home when you walk through a door?

10/10/2026

This is what it’s all about! Helping small businesses craft out their next experiences where they lovingly serve the communities they’re in. We are so humbled that we get to help these two companies full of great people and ran by their dynamic leader, Jenny Burds! We can’t wait to get some dirt moving and walls built!

THE SECRET’S OUT!! 🤫

For months we've been teasing Thunder Valley's Best Kept Secret.

Here it is: Burds Family Practice and SkinRx are building a brand-new home together on Thunder Valley Drive in Peosta.

We are so excited to move into a space designed just for you. Every detail has been meticulously planned to provide our patients with a place they feel comfortable visiting.

Coming in 2027!

Follow along at our official accounts:

Burds Family Practice

SkinRx by Burds Family Practice

Shout out to our friends at Form Function Studio and Mike Heims Construction for getting this off the ground

10/06/2026

There’s a language to arrival.

At Tangle Trail, we wanted that language to speak before you enter. A two-step journey we’re calling the hug — where the building itself tells you something about how you’re designed to be welcomed. What unfolds is a hundred-square-foot front porch under a fourteen-foot covered porch. Space for a swinging bench, for proper welcoming of friends and family, for that quintessential pause before you enter into the home.

And then the glass. A direct connection to the backyard, to nature. We chose the door in a vertical wood grain, deep Raven finish for the entry threshold — something solid, intentional, real. A moment to pause before you step in.

This is what happens when design is thinking about people first.

What does arrival mean to you? How do you want to be welcomed?

ResidentialDesign ArchitectureMatters

09/30/2026

When you're designing a home for a young, lively neighborhood like Manchester, every alignment matters. Every corridor. Every sightline. Not because it looks good. Because it connects you to the life happening around you and inside.

At Tangle Trail, the kitchen, entry, and that 12 foot bi-parting slider all align. You're not standing in a kitchen looking at a wall. You're standing in a kitchen watching your kids play outside. You're making memories while you cook. You're present to the neighborhood, the yard, the people you live with.

That's intentionality. That's what we mean by Design For More...more connection, more light, more of life actually happening in your home.

You hear neighborhood sounds in this video? A young family outside? That's the point. This home breathes with where it sits. That's not a distraction. That's the design working.

We're walking you through Tangle Trail room by room. Each space. Each decision. The intention behind it all.

What changes in how you live when your home is designed to connect you to the people and places around it?

09/28/2026

Design doesn't always have to shout to be heard. Sometimes it whispers a story.

Yaman trained in Paris and London. She carries Syrian hospitality in everything she makes. When she imagined Roses and Berries Café in Dubuque, she wasn't looking for a space that felt like one place or the other. She needed both, woven together, inseparable. That's the design challenge we actually solve for this boutique cafe: how do you make a room feel like two cultures at home in each other?

Three arches organize the entire experience. Not because arches are beautiful, though they are. Because they work within the context of the design intent. Each one frames a different kind of gathering: quiet coffee dates, intimate two tops, lively family tables. Communal seating. Lounge corners. The arches create visual anchors and functional zones all at once. Movement feels intuitive. Conversation feels natural. The architecture gets out of the way and lets hospitality lead.

The material palette draws from the Middle East and Europe without trying to be either. Light and airy, grounded by darker accents. Timeless, not trendy. Roses thread through the design—Yaman's family flower, a symbol of peace...woven into artwork, textures, floral arrangements. Not decoration. Story.

Every fixture, every finish was chosen to support the culinary experience. Because at Roses and Berries, food is the art. The architecture is just the frame.

The modest tenant space has become a regional destination because Yaman's vision was clear and our design answered it honestly. Dubuque now has a café where French technique and Syrian warmth belong to the same room. Where people walk in and feel something true. Yaman has created an anchor space where all walks of life can feel like they are blossoming, always starting with one of her magical dishes.

What does it mean when a café or a place witihin your community becomes a place people want to bring their families, their dates, their questions? When design supports generosity instead of competing with it?

09/23/2026

As they walk down from the primary suite, there's a view. Not a hallway. A view.

The same window that frames the landscaping opportunity from the suite is the same window they'll see walking through the garage. Continuity. Intention. Then into the kitchen, and another view to the outside. The home isn't a series of rooms with doors. It's a path. A sequence of moments where your eye lands on something beautiful instead of a wall.

This is really important to us.

We don't believe in turning down a hallway just to see a door at the end. That's not how we want you to live. Every circulation should take you somewhere you want to be. Past a view. Past art. Past something that makes you pause and notice. That's the difference between a home that functions and a home that actually speaks to you.

We can't wait to share more of Tangle Trail with you. The finishes are coming. The details that will make this frame feel like the home it's built to become. The textures. The materials. The moments that turn a structure into a sanctuary.

What view do you want to see first thing when you wake up or come home?

09/21/2026

Sometimes you see a design and know it belongs exactly where it will stand.

Lantern Hill got to be one of those projects.

Set within the landscape of Lake Carroll, its architecture is grounded in restraint. Gabled forms. Clean rooflines. Layered porches that soften the mass and invite a moment of pause before entry. Deep openings that frame views instead of competing with them. Plantings that connect the home to the land rather than separate it from it.

From the street, it will feel familiar. Composed. Comfortable. Not chasing trends. Not demanding attention. Just a home that understands its place.
The architecture isn't trying to be the story. The architecture allows the story - Life at the Lake - to happen.

Every proportion has purpose. Every material was chosen to age gracefully and belong to its setting. Warm tones, honest textures, and a palette that lets the surrounding landscape do what it does best. Through every season, the house will feel rooted, not imposed.

Right now, the vision exists in renderings. We hope that it will get to exist in wood, stone, glass, and the intrusion of natural light on the residence

Design For More isn't always about adding complexity. Sometimes it's about removing distractions. Letting proportion, material, and place do the heavy lifting. Lantern Hill is a reminder that the most enduring designs are often the most intentional.

A home is one of the clearest expressions of how we want to live. When you imagine yours, what story should it tell before anyone even walks through the door?