I am frequently asked to visit a potential client’s house and tell them what I think are some possibilities that I see. I walk around the house, through the property, over the drive and walks, back into the house. There are usually some obvious flaws as well as clearly apparent opportunities - usually more expansive views - that can be taken advantage of. But these are typically responses to the larger site and its landscape rather than interior room configurations or spatial alterations. And I often think these homeowners are frustrated with my reluctance to start describing changes to the internal organization of the house. I am not holding back, wanting to get paid for my ideas. I am waiting.
Anyone who has practiced for even the shortest time recognizes the limitations of just what we can see in front of us when we walk through a building. We can tell you the obvious things - open up this wall or the ceilings certainly are low - but a thorough and meaningful assessment of a building needs more than a simple walk through. For me, it needs drawings. Specifically, when I can pour over a set of drawings, even maybe the loosest of plan sketches, I can see relationships and alignments that are very difficult, if not impossible to see in the physical space.
So much of our work entails trying to discover, or establish, some kind of spatial order, within a building that is either lacking this level of consideration, or has been added on to and changed over time and lost its initial clarity. Beyond the necessities of adequate room size, spatial flow or utilitarian efficiencies, our work is fundamentally concerned with making buildings have a sense of order and compostion.
When I walk through a building I see largely what we can not easily change, not the opportunities of what the entire building can generate. I can’t see through the walls to see how a new opening in this room can align with a window to west to expose mountain views. I can’t look through the floors and roof to see how a skylight might let the reflected light from a tree canopy flood the lower levels of the house. But with a walk through and a plan drawing, I can see through the walls and floors, see past the odd alignments of years of additions, and look into the future to see what can be done.