Turkel Design’s track record of success stretches across the Golden State
Are you looking to build a beautiful custom home in California?
Are you looking for a way to solve for the unpredictability of labor costs and quality?
Do you need someone to help you navigate the challenges of complicated local building regulations?
When building a custom home, the peace of mind that comes with predictability of cost, timing, and quality is key.
This is where we come in. Find out why Turkel Design is the right partner to make the modern home you envision a reality.
Our Mission
Cofounders Joel and Meelena Turkel established their practice to fulfill the dream of making beautiful, high-quality architecture available to clients no matter where they live. Now, with more than 200 projects completed worldwide, Turkel Design has refined a signature process that combines design excellence with precision prefabrication to ensure predictability of cost, timeline, and quality.
We Design for You and Your Property
One of the many beautiful things about California is the diversity of its landscape—from desert to mountains to oceanfront. With dozens of completed projects in every part of the state, we have experience designing for this wide range of environmental conditions. Our process begins with a site visit and analysis to ensure that your home takes advantage of what you love about your location. Every site has its challenges and opportunities – here are some we consider:
- Passive heating and cooling strategies
- Building on a steep slope
- Navigating the permitting process and local regulations
Having designed homes for clients on land affected by wildfires and mudslides, and connected homeowners to trusted general contractors and local consultants at times when their services are in especially high demand, we know the importance of using materials and strategies that help protect your home.
Predictability of Cost, Timeline, and Quality
In California, you need to be confident that your project will stay within your budget. At Turkel Design, once we’ve taken you through our interactive custom design process, we provide a fixed quote for your prefabricated building package. Once the project begins, we develop and regularly update a customized eventline to ensure that you always know how it is progressing. We leverage the predictability of prefab to ensure transparency around the cost and timeline of your custom home project.
Quality is not often associated with prefab homes – not all prefab methods are equal. We use a panelized prefabrication method, in which the focus is not only on efficiency and predictability, but on high quality design, materials, and execution. Each custom home is essentially built three times: first using a 3D digital model, then on a factory floor, and finally on your building site, ensuring that the final product is assembled as designed. This process leverages the inspired design required to realize your vision, and results in a durable, weathertight home that can be completed more efficiently and predictably than a stick-built home.
Sustainability is Key
As one of the most environmentally progressive states in the U.S., California has strict requirements regarding sustainability. We have expertise designing to the standards of Title 24, California’s energy efficiency law, and the California Coastal Commission.
We employ innovative materials and systems to reduce waste and ensure that your home is energy efficient and weathertight. Once the building component package is fabricated, we flat-pack and ship it to reduce the number of trips to your building site.
Learn how environmental sustainability is built into every step of the Turkel Design process.
We Call It Home, Too
When it came time to design their own family home, Joel and Meelena Turkel chose Palm Springs as the location. They created Desert House as Turkel Design’s “Living Lab” for innovation. Desert House was a Featured Home at Palm Springs Modernism Week 2019 and continues to host open houses and special events for those who want to see our signature approach to prefab up close.
Get in Touch
Now is the time to embark on your California custom home. We’d love to hear about how you want to live.