Often, when I have many things I need to work on, I feel more creative. I'll find myself procrastinating by putting my mental energies into things that I find more interesting. Part of me thinks its a complete and utter waste of time to indulge in this habit, yet, I can't help but thinking that sketching or designing for fun teaches me things that can be applied later. Or that allowing a creative outburst stimulates the brain and allows me to be more productive overall. In any event, I've been a flurry of activity lately, as we find ourselves in the pre-Spring Break crunch.
Today, I partially developed a design for a house. The behind-the-scenes work has its genesis in a number of thoughts I've been having about an ideal room. What does the ideal room for living look like? While in France, I was consistently drawn to the high ceilings and comfortable proportions that the French employ in their apartments. Part of the delight was due to the large, famed French windows that could be accommodated by the larger proportions of the room. My other inspiration is also French in a roundabout way - the beautiful home of our Paris studio professor here in Washington. He designed and built a house on a wooded site in northwest DC that takes advantage of heavy timber construction and a large "great room" that can be adapted to many uses.
So, back to the ideal room. Assuming myself as the client, what would my main living space look like? Where would I want to invite people for dinner? I think a large room would be ideal - with the kitchen elsewhere (I wouldn't want my dirty dishes on view during after dinner conversation). Not too much furniture, either. After our final dinner in Paris, we went back to my sketching professor's apartment, and the evening quickly turned into a salsa-dancing lesson - we were able to push all of the furniture to the edge of the room, open the windows and have a dancing extravaganza til the wee hours (the good Côtes du Rhône helped considerably). Regardless, the ability to be flexible is important to me. Of course, whenever I'm designing a house, I always think about what Christmas would look like there, and how Thanksgiving dinner could be accommodated. These rituals comprise only a fraction of the year, but then again, given their importance, shouldn't they be easily adapted into the architecture of a home?
Above, you can see the fruits of my labors. Essentially a two-story concrete box, the room makes use of a variety of wood details to add warmth. Steel beams and simple lightbulb light fixtures add a casual, industrial feel. Bookshelves divide the dining area from the entry hall and kitchen beyond. Upstairs, a small balcony overlooks the space, providing an isolated perch for reading. The master bedroom and a small office space are behind the balcony.
So now I've designed a house and taken the time to write about it. I really should get back to real work.
