I miss talking about architecture...
My husband says that going to school full time would be my dream job, and he's right in a lot of ways. I miss the conversation, the momentum, and the insight you are surrounded by when you are participating in an academic environment. I find that if anyone in my current life asks me even the most benign question about architecture, it's a struggle to not capitulate into the depths of conversation for hours, because I miss it so much. The struggle is usually only on my side, though, since no one else around here really wants to capitulate with me, which is understandable because I'm not surrounded by architects anymore. The other day, though, a close friend questioned my blathering on Instagram about the impressions Taliesin West made on me - his side-eye of the project and my enthusiasm for it caused me to clarify to myself some of the reasons why I was so enamored of a place that really isn't my 'style', and I'm grateful for the challenge he presented. I want to make sure I don't ignore this as a sign that I should be allowing myself to dig deeper into why design resonates with me or with the general population, and also how it can inspire and inform designs I think about in the future.
The 'thing' that resonated with me so strongly at Taliesin West was the deliberate nature of how the spaces achieved their goals. Wright was inspired by the mountains and their regulated, repetitive, triangular form - he wanted to represent the landscape literally in the shapes of the buildings, and be sure that whoever was enjoying the inside spaces was in direct connection to those outside inspirations. The forms give over their control of the aesthetics to the natural environment, which makes just so much sense to me - why would we want it any other way? This moment has helped me verbalize more of what unsettles me about the built environment that is so commonplace in modern civilization. I have long gravitated to design that is cradled by and gives deference to the site, as opposed to commandeering it, and Taliesin is a great living example. The buildings feel like they may have grown there over time, and the handmade details just add to that soft and quiet presence. I have a hard time understanding the tendency, especially with houses, to just shove a house onto a site, landing it on the ground with all the grace of a Terry Gilliam-animated building landing on a charicature of a politician and crushing him with a PFFFFT sound. In urban environments, the argument could be made that the land is so far removed from it's natural state that the desire to build vertical is simply the best option remaining, and I can agree with that. Economical use of space is important in our overpopulated world, so I understand that these idealized approaches to building don't work everywhere. Out here in suburbia, though, I see so many opportunities to welcome the landscape into our residential designs, and it seems not many people are interested. Perhaps it's a societal reality that we are all so insulated from actually needing nature to make it though our days, that we just simply don't think about it as a source of inspiration. We no longer need to design our homes for natural ventilation, space for farm animals, seasonal materials, etc etc etc. Design at this point is literally ALL our choice - we can choose to design for maximum energy efficiency, or to not care. We can choose to design in a way that works around the conditions of our sites, or choose to bulldoze them until the colonial revival floor plan sits right in the middle. We can choose to take a moment and process our surroundings and think carefully about how we can minimize our impact and thereby maximize the longevity of our designs. If I am lucky enough to be able to pursue designing a home from scratch this year, I hope I can keep these thoughts in mind as I dive deep into the process.