How long to do you plan to stay?
How long do you plan to stay in a place? When we start talking about a project this is one of the first questions we ask because it is so fundamental to the way we approach design. The longer you plan to stay in a place, the more it makes sense to build it well and the greater the harvest you reap from making that place healthier over time.
Especially in a residential context, questions of designing for changes over a lifetime can be incredibly informative. How might children one day live in the house? What about teenagers? Do you think your children might one day move onto the property as adults? With their own children? Could your parents eventually move onto the property? How should we design for you yourself to age in the home?
…not necessarily to go home, but to go someplace and dig in and begin the long search and experiment to become native…
In Becoming Native to This Place, botanist and activist Wes Jackson uses the term “homecomers” to describe those who make the effort to become native to their individual places. In his words “homecomers” want “…not necessarily to go home, but to go someplace and dig in and begin the long search and experiment to become native.” How can architecture facilitate and participate in that grand experiment?
There are a whole host of design techniques and tools we use which typically fall under the generalized header of “sustainable design” or “green design” to achieve this. Designing for daylight, thermal comfort, passive and active ventilation, rainwater collection, wastewater reuse, net-zero energy use (or net positive generation!), carbon-sequestering building materials, disaster resilience, and native habitat creation are all goals we strive for on every project in some way or another.
These tools and techniques are critical (and thankfully now in many cases required by code), but they are not the end goal themselves. We use them to create a design and ultimately a building that will enhance the life of those who inhabit it - whether that is you the owner, or your employees, or your customers - by connecting them to the natural world, and its rhythms, and the life that it supports.
