Comments

Tom, allow me support your rant a bit...

Having done a lot of work with real estate people, it's a well known fact that it's easier to sell a house that someone is living in. Seeing furniture, people, and activity gives it the sense of being a home and conjures up our own images of making it so for us. Without those, it's a collection of wood, sheetrock, carpet, metal... "materials." Materials we walk on, put stuff on, paint to our liking, cover with blinds and drapes...

A cardboard box is just a box. It's what you put in it and take out of it that matters.

Posted by Dan Gunter at June 29, 2009 1:45 PM

Rhetorical "box" question:

Would a homeless person on the street care whether the box had an Apple logo or a Dell logo instead? He sees a place to hide from the wind and rain. He sees the longer term potential of it. He's perhaps the enlightened one.

Posted by Dan Gunter at June 29, 2009 1:47 PM

An interesting point of view, albeit not one that I entirely agree with. The decisions taken by the architect can not only have a great impact on the interior space, lighting, as well as external aesthetic appeal, but also the architects decisions will impact what the interior designer is able to do (as well as the landscaper to a certain extent). Not to mention that the architect has an infinitely more complex role overall - their job is not (just) to design an aesthetically pleasing structure, that takes into account space and lighting, but they are responsible for the structural stability/safety/function of that building.

Posted by Jonathan Fleck at June 29, 2009 5:44 PM

I purchased and redid an 1836 Victorian back in the early 1990's. The architect did a beautiful job on paper. But when it came time to actually do the remodeling, it was the skills and finesse of the various specialized contractors that was required to get around some the architect's design errors. Like his putting a door under the side of a stairwell. It was originally a suspended staircase, but we added 1/2 bath in the space underneath it. Where the architect showed the door going, it could only have been 3'7" high. He forgot to allow for air returns anywhere. Numerous little things. I'm not complaining. Nobody gets 100% of the work right the first time every time. But I learned a lesson: your architect has to work WITH the contractors and communicate. Otherwise, you're going to have a LOT of expensive changes and workarounds.

Posted by Dan Gunter at June 29, 2009 6:04 PM

I’m not really sure who is to blame. It may be architects or may be internal designers but I’m noticing an increasing tendency toward lunacy in the positioning of toilet roll holders in toilets. Given the fact back injuries account for most day’s sickness in the UK this is potentially a serious matter as you will appreciate from my conclusions below. I hereby conclude the people who fit toilet roll holders in some of the positions I've seen in toilets here in the UK either:

• Have a great sense of humour
• Are contortionists and assume we all are too
• Have never sat on the toilet seat in their entire lives
• Are stupid
• Are drunk when they fit them
• Are seeking celebrity

Please add your own …..

Or am I the only one who notices these things? … In which case maybe I should just get out more.

Posted by Trevor Gay at June 29, 2009 6:27 PM

Trevor, you forgot one possibility in your list above:

• They just don't USE toilet paper (which could explain a FEW things.)

Posted by Dan Gunter at June 29, 2009 7:15 PM

DIY = Design it yourself
DIY = Deliver it yourself
DIY = Devine (the solution) it yourself....

Posted by patrick at June 30, 2009 8:56 AM

Very taoist, Tom.

From the Mitchell interpretation (not literal translation) of the Tao Te Ching:

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

Posted by Guy Iaccarino at July 2, 2009 10:24 AM

Guy, wonderful thoughts to share. The Tao does contain a lot of wisdom. Wayne Dyer uses a similar analogy/example of a spoon, asking "What makes the spoon work?" After everyone comments on everything from the handle to the curve of the base, he points out that ultimately it is the empty space that allows it to be of use to us.

Posted by Dan Gunter at July 2, 2009 11:23 AM

"We work with being,
but non-being is what we use."

Guy - What does this mean?

Posted by Judith Ellis at July 2, 2009 11:51 AM

Judith, if I may butt in, the Tao is saying that what we actually do is shape tangible matter (being) to form empty space (non-being) in order to actually do a job (work.) See my last post above. Perhaps the spoon example will help you to understand better what the Tao is saying.

Posted by Dan Gunter at July 2, 2009 3:32 PM

Thank you, Dan.

Posted by Judith Ellis at July 2, 2009 7:17 PM

Hi Tom,

Thanks for understanding that we landscape designers are as important to the design/building process as other design professionals. Alas, architects and interior designers tend to use up a client's budget by the time we're brought onto the scene. A better approach is to utilize our expertise from the beginning in helping site a building while also imagining what this particular "home outside" (as I call it) needs. This way, a more integrated relationship between house and landscape; inside and out; and outside and in, can be created.

Cheers,
Julie

Posted by Julie Messervy at July 10, 2009 9:46 AM

Thanks Dan - I now understand my Chicago Cubs. They have been trying to use the space around the bat, the non-being. Striving for Tao has been hard on the batting average.

Posted by Bruce at July 10, 2009 10:35 AM

Bruce, that is TOO funny! Maybe they should switch to hollow bats and imagine the ball striking that "inner space?" I wonder, though, would a ball colliding with that space would deprive us of the old "crack of the ball and bat?"

Posted by Dan Gunter at July 11, 2009 12:15 PM