Architecture and Design —
Where Every Home Begins
Every Ceci Bates home starts the same way — with a conversation about how you want to live and a careful study of the land where your home will stand. From that conversation and that land, Roberth Jordan designs an architecture that is entirely yours. By the time you approve the final plans, you will have walked through your finished home on screen, approved every detail, and understood why every room faces the direction it does.
The Architect Between
the Dream and the Building
Roberth Jordan trained at one of the top three architecture schools in Latin America, spent years designing corporate spaces for multinationals, and eventually brought that discipline to residential architecture in North Texas. He works by hand and digitally — sketching concepts on paper before they become three-dimensional models, because the hand-drawn phase is where the ideas are freest and the possibilities widest.
His role is translation. He stands between the client’s dream and the building process, taking what is in a person’s mind — their needs, their aspirations, their memories of spaces they have loved — and turning it into architecture that captures how they want to live.
Roberth does not design in isolation. From the first meeting, he works alongside the builder, the interior designer, and the structural engineer — each bringing a perspective the others do not have. The architecture must be beautiful, but it must also be buildable, within budget, and structurally sound.
Every Design Begins
with the Land
Before a single line is drawn, Roberth visits the property and flies a drone to document it from every relevant perspective. The drone captures views at different heights — twenty feet, thirty-four feet, forty-six feet — marking the elevation where the best views appear. From these flights, he maps the site: where the lake is visible, where the premium views are, where the sun rises and sets across seasons, where the terrain falls, and which trees define the property’s character.
This analysis produces a canvas — a set of constraints and opportunities that shape every decision that follows. The orientation of the home, the placement of the primary living spaces, the height of each story, and the position of every window are all driven by what the site itself reveals.
Roberth presents this analysis to the client before any design work begins. The result is that when the concept is revealed, the client does not simply react to a design they like or dislike. They understand why the home faces the direction it does, why the master bedroom captures that particular angle of the lake, and why the garage is positioned where it is.
They own the reasoning behind the design — and that ownership means they will defend it. When someone later suggests moving a bedroom to the other side of the house, the client knows why it is where it is. They do not need to ask the architect. They understand.
The Concept —
Where Ideas Are Freest
The first phase of design is what Roberth calls the dreaming phase. Working from the site analysis and the conversations with the client, he sketches the initial concept by hand — floor plans, elevations, spatial relationships, the way the home sits on the land. The hand-drawn approach is deliberate. It allows ideas to flow without the constraints of software, and it produces something the client can hold, mark up, and respond to as a tangible object.
Roberth's philosophy at this stage is to think big and scale down rather than start cautiously and try to add ambition later. Every house should have something special — a feature, a proportion, a relationship to the landscape that makes it singular. The concept phase is where that specialness is born.
The client reviews the concept, provides feedback, and the design evolves through a structured rhythm: Roberth works from Monday through Friday, delivers progress at the end of the week, and the client reviews over the weekend with their spouse or partner. Monday brings the feedback, and the cycle continues. This cadence keeps the process moving without pressure — every week produces visible progress, and every decision builds on the one before it.
Walking Through Your Home
Before It Exists
Once the concept is approved, Roberth builds a full three-dimensional model of the home in ArchiCAD — the same software used for commercial architecture. This is not a rough digital sketch. It is a precise virtual building where every wall, window, roof line, and structural element is modeled at full fidelity. Interior materials — the stone, the tile, the wood flooring, the cabinetry, the fixtures — are rendered using the actual products the client has selected.
The result is an experience that changes most clients' relationship with their project. They walk through finished rooms — seeing the ceiling height, the natural light at different times of day, the view from the kitchen island, the proportions of the master suite — before any ground has been broken.
Every model is accessible via a QR code on any smartphone. During construction, this means standing inside a framed room and overlaying the completed design onto the raw space — bridging the gap between the building mess of construction and the home you approved on screen.
I just went through the 3D walkthrough and honestly, it all clicked. Seeing the spaces like this made me understand every decision — why things are placed the way they are. We love the plan. I’m genuinely excited now, this feels real.
— Jason M., Modern Estates
What Design Intelligence
Looks Like
A client arrived with plans drawn by an outside architect. The floor plan was excellent — the architect had done good work. But the exterior elevation did not deliver the Tuscan styling the client envisioned, and the home did not look like a home at the price the client was investing.
Roberth took the floor plan, studied it, and hand-rendered a completely reconceived exterior — the same house, the same rooms, the same square footage, reimagined with the architectural detail and proportions that the client's budget deserved.
Before — Original Architect's Elevation
After — Roberth's Redesign
The result was a dramatically more beautiful home delivered at the same cost. No added square footage. No exotic materials. The improvement came entirely from design intelligence — better proportions, more intentional material placement, and the kind of architectural detail that transforms a house into a home worth building.
This is what happens when the architect, the structural engineer, and the builder work together from the beginning. The client ends up with a better home — not because they spent more, but because the team around them was better.
From Vision to Structure
When the design is approved, it moves to Bogdan "Bob" Taut — the structural engineer who transforms Roberth's architectural vision into a fully engineered building system. Working in the same 3D environment, Bob produces a second complete set of plans: the structural documents that specify every beam, column, joist, and steel member — sized, located, and load-calculated.
This engineering depth is what allows the precise material takeoffs, the price-locking at contract signing, and the sequenced construction that defines the Ceci Bates building process. The architecture is not simply drawn and handed to a framer to interpret. It is engineered — and the engineering is what ensures that the home you approved on screen is exactly the home that gets built in the field.
See how the engineering becomes a homeYour Project, Visible
at Every Step
Roberth has built a web-based project console that gives every client complete visibility into the design process. From the moment the project begins, the console tracks the current phase, the progress percentage, the last update, and the next expected milestone. A message board allows direct communication — share reference images, upload sketches, or snap a photo of a house you admire while driving and send it instantly.
The console begins with a questionnaire designed to surface priorities you may not have thought to articulate. When a client writes a detailed description of their kitchen but only checks a few boxes about the master suite, Roberth knows where the emotional center of the home lies. Every design update is documented with notes explaining what was changed and why. The process is not a black box — it is a living record accessible at any time from any device.
In Their Own Words
I just went through the 3D walkthrough and honestly, it all clicked. Seeing the spaces like this made me understand every decision — why things are placed the way they are. We love the plan. I’m genuinely excited now, this feels real.
— Jason M., Modern Estates
Every Home Begins with a Conversation
If you are beginning to imagine a home — on a piece of land you already own or one you are still searching for — the design process starts with what you have in mind. We would welcome the opportunity to listen.
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