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“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”
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Marcus Aurelius |
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The longer I've practiced architecture
the more convinced I've grown of the value of a thoughtful design
process and the design
premium that accrues to a home or building professionally
and collaboratively conceived. What is
highly livable in a home makes it also highly marketable and
valuable as an investment in time, energy and resources. The
resources put into a home are not an expense, they are an investment
(in real estate equity), and this is one of the largest investments
most of us normally make. In this sense an Architect
serves in a kind of fiduciary capacity as well as a design
role. The stakes are substantial and there are a host
of dynamics impacting the process, as well as pitfalls.
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| “The purpose of life is to unlearn what has been learned and to remember what has been forgotten.” |
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Sufi proverb |
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The ideal is a creative and reasonable
experience. Unfortunately in many ways this is an altogether
countercultural occurrence, occasioning a strategy of equal
parts precaution and optimism. There are a host of distractions
in popular and commercial culture that will contend to distort
our focus, and the flashy, frivolous and grandiose are often
valued over the simple, enlivening and lasting. This
is an occasion for raising an opposite wave and a lot of sorting. It
requires commitment to keeping first things first, in order
to create a pleasing and livable environment that supports
your own lifestyle and is consistent with the goals, and constraints,
that you bring to the table. This is both an analytical
and an intuitive process that starts with a deliberate intention.
Each individual and each site,
each project and each schedule and budget, is so unique that
it’s
not terribly useful to lay out much more of a design ideology
than this without first having met personally, established
a working rapport and shared the facets of your own particular
needs, design objectives, and constraints. |
