Seven years after completing this project, we spoke — architect and client. The very first thing she said was, ‘I love being in the house. Opening the front door’, she continued,‘is like opening a package … I want to be in the house’. Of the little events that make up dwelling, I remember her husband as a man of tremendous energy, traveling great distances as part of his work, and longing to come home to a place as special as his other destinations. He spends time playing the piano in the room whose purpose we could never figure out except to think that it might be good to have a room both near and private at the same time. Her children have found their spaces, places to put their things, their nooks and corners. She said,‘It worked out so perfectly . . . the spatial interaction, the right proportions. I feel very comfortable. I get a peaceful sense of well-being’. This is an addition to a house, overlooking the Potomac River just outside Washington, DC, made for a family of five.
Vague Places with Fine Edges Caren Yglesias
m ost of the time clients want specific things. Sometimes they leap with you into places undefined and difficult to name. When this happens, harmonious dwelling becomes possible both between architecture and landscape, and between a person and their home. I have often thought about walking through this house. It is not easy to understand about moving through spaces, along walls and towards objects leaving things behind. If you bend the wall does your step shift, does your eye? If you set the sides of the stair apart from the walls can you feel a sort of three-dimensional threshold between plan and section? Does the wedge of space between the original house and the new addition setting up a shift in orientation split one part from the other? Or does the adjusted aspect support sensations of placement within the landscape? Will the glass block emphasize this as a formal gesture, or even better, suggest drawing near the surfaces of diffused light? She said,‘It gives me the feeling of having beauty around me.’ Architects wonder about how to know what clients are asking for. Many want to be part of every creative effort, but usually end up challenging every proposal you make. This time the client worked with the contrac- tor to purchase everything needed for construction. Windows and doors, skylights and fixtures were found and brought to the site. She made tiles. Her work involved experimenting with patterns, colors and finishes. How could I do less with the drawings and models? During construction, a smoothness of effort seemed to come without constantly reconsidering decisions about elements. A rare confidence earned through this consideration. Why doesn’t every project end up this way? Is it that good ideas in their young state wither under scrutiny? Some architectural projections cannot be defended with words. Some inventions proposed with care cannot be argued because they do not come from places of rational and logical certainty. Architecture seems to come from listening to client memories about places that somehow are worth remembering. Architecture seems to come from a desire to have what they do not have, those sensations that come from seeing material surfaces hold shadows and reflect light. Architecture seems to come from understanding that many things in architecture cannot be understood. When this happens, however it happens, my pleasure comes from their dwelling well, and my thoughts continue to dwell in the realm of elegant intentions.
Caren is in her third decade of practicing architecture in Wash- ington, DC with residential projects throughout the country. She is an adjunct professor teaching studio at the Washington- Alexandria Architecture Center of Virginia Tech.
40
O n S ite review
S urface
I ssue 9 2003
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator