In fact, I’d say that the most creative and pleasing results come when there are constraints around a design that really push the solution in a new direction. Finding an example of this kind of problem-solving is challenging – because the best ones you never know are there once the project is built – but an odd setback on this house meant we had to jog in where the former back wall of the house once sat. How on earth could a kitchen wall jog in two feet along its span? By making it the origin of the peninsula. The constraint gave us a framework for the new addition, provided the larger kitchen the owners’ wanted, and allowed the old house to be what it was at the same time.
I have been mulling this over ever since I attended a local historic preservation commission meeting where each of the applicants is getting exactly what they want from their project while following all the rules – a combination that some seem to believe is impossible in an historic district. While there are a few things that are indeed inappropriate in a district (if you want a modern house, go buy a modern house, don’t try to strong-arm a sweet little victorian into the wrong size shoes, ok? it’s like taking your great-aunt to the biker bar, and no one will be comfortable), the vast majority of that is about style and now about function. We can always find a way to incorporate a purpose or a space in a way that is good for the house and good for the family at the same time.
the back corner jog provides an anchor point for the peninsula – and allows the addition to meet necessary set-backs. (Trinity Design/Build – by permission)
Julie Stalin’s 339 W. Main St – where a necessary rear exit turned into a lovely back stoop.
An interesting question flew across my radar today, nearly lost in the haze of all-that-must-be-done: how on earth is all that we’re creating now being archived?
As someone involved on a daily basis with history and the historic in a very tangible way, the idea of preserving the detritus of normal life is very appealing; after all, nothing is more fun that finding a scrap of newspaper under wall-to-wall carpeting or an old shoe behind a staircase. Photos behind the
Sure looks prettier than a fail whale. Photo: flikr creative commons/martin kingsley
mantle? even more fun! A century-old diary is a remarkable and fragile thing to hold… so what will become of my twitter feed? (Pithy though it is, I’m not entirely sure it deserves archiving.) Regardless, there are people with the forethought to consider how future generations will research and access all that is created now.
It leads me to wonder: of our built environment, how do we start planning on preservation now? Is the green movement, theoretically concerned with the full life-cycle of buildings, taking into consideration how we can maintain and preserve those buildings for generations to come? or are they instead planning for when they’re obsolete and need to be recycled into new carpet tiles and metal roofs?
Further, if the end of the McMansion is indeed here (already under discussion back in 2005) and those neighborhoods of giants become the next slums, then how and when will we get around to preserving those? and heaven help me when I head out to do that fieldwork…
I firmly believe that one reason why historic preservation is so appealing to people now is that most of the ingredients in this modern life are meant to be transient, to flit across our brains and out the other side, to slide across our table and into the trash. Buildings that express a permanence and temporal stability give us something to ground ourselves with, an anchor to hold onto. So perhaps those archivists struggling to collect all the waves of information and words created today will provide some of that steadiness for the future… or at least an ‘oh, fun!’ moment of the postcard behind the built-in.
I’m debating exactly what purpose this opening page will have. Maintenance of a full-blown, daily blog is out of the realm of possibility at the moment, and I don’t want it to look like I’ve forgotten about the site if nothing changes every three days. Instead, I believe I’ll use it to write about big changes, new projects, major stages, and final conclusions. The momentous and significant only.
That means something important had best happen soon!
