Mid-Century features worth thinking about

Organic architecture has been called "the other modernism." Modernist architecture is not organic architecture, but organic architecture has more in common with mid-century modern than with today's insipid antiseptic styles.

Instagrammer @leonie.pauls posts features from mid-century homes it's worth thinking about ...

As the great modernist designer Zsuzsa Kozma (aka Susan Orlay) used to say,
what isn't built-in should be easily moved, ensuring spaces are
open and flexible. Built-ins save space, give the sense that the
home is a provider -- and you can build-in carefully chosen
ready-made furniture to ensure a high level of cabinetry
without the expense of a cabinet-maker on the job.

Ceiling shelves and ceiling decks can frame a space, hint at the zoning of spaces,
and can give you display space without clutter

Built-in seating is the ultimate space-saver -- and
a powerful invitation to sit and enjoy a cosy space.

No television, no distractions, just honest conversations (although we
could spend some time here arguing about the style...)

An ideal way to bring second-hand daylight into an interior space

Why not have both spaces enjoy the delight of your open fire

There are many things the regulators have killed off. Here's another one.

Just one of many flexible ways to divide space, and help it work hard for you

Corners define a space. Open space at the corners, and space 

begins to open out, rather than enclose.

Who really needs a palace made of gib?

An underrated flooring choice. Warm underfoot; soft to the touch; kind to feet, knees and hips; and (these days, with so many gorgeous varieties of cork on offer) beautiful to look at.
And it's a natural material. What's not to like?

Bring back rich colour!

The popular colour palette of today goes from white to grey.
Aim to be bolder!

Don't be scared of a level change!

Light from above is the brightest part of the sky dome.
Bring in light from above whenever possible.

Bring back colour!

Build in nature

When in doubt, use a natural material

Project: 'Rural' Renovation, 2012

I've been asked again about old projects.  About which I really should talk more.

Here's one that was slightly unusual, renovation of a large old colonial home that led me to turn down a large job later.

The house was originally in Parnell -- part of the Foundation for the Blind complex directly opposite a vet clinic I'd helped establish -- and been moved out to a rural property in Drury some years prior. But never quite established.

Original elevation

It had been moved, but without any grace. Not having been a home for many years, and then simply plonked down in a field, we joked it felt more like a Soviet Embassy than a family home. The brief of course was to reverse that. To add comfort with some seamless and "surgical additions" -- decent living, kitchen, family areas, bedrooms and a pool -- and so we did. At least it had been oriented well ...

 

Unhappily for the project however, just as the job was completed Drury was transformed by rezoning. And the former rural family home with views over water instead became the "clubhouse" for a large retirement village.  For which I was offered the opportunity to continue the renovation, but felt I had to decline.

Too soon.

Still. the former owners were able to re-establish their dream home in a rural idyll further south. And  much of what we'd done has been retained...

"To act within the marketplace, but not to be governed by the values of the market-place, is a considerable personal discipline."

What Robert Fripp describes below between audient and musician is the same --or should be -- between client and architect ...

"A customer acts within the framework of commerce. An audient acts within the framework of a listening community. When a musician believes that musicking is a commercial activity, the music dies inside them.

"To act within the marketplace, but not to be governed by the values of the market-place, is a considerable personal discipline. To see the audient as consumer denies them their humanity. They become a purchasing unit. Our human interaction ends with the completion of the transaction. When musician & audience combine to bring music flying into our world, to be parents to the music, life begins again.

“'Audient' is a description, not a label."

~ Robert Fripp from his Diary - April 15th. 1999

"Architects matter not because they have mastered a specific instrument, but because they can bring the orchestra together, and in doing so make our cities better places to live."

Engineer Arthur Kay seeks to explain how architects have been losing their influence, but shouldn't be. In short, it's the problem of a world of specialists in which the generalist might best be the best guide. "We need less specialisation in architecture," he argues, "and more big-picture thinking."

In 1953, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin took an ancient Greek proverb, attributed to Archilochus, and used it to divide the world into two kinds of thinkers: “The Fox knows many things, but the Hedgehog knows one big thing.” He described a chasm between people who see the world through a “single central vision” and those who “pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory.” ...

Architecture is a Fox’s discipline. It sits between capital, politics, infrastructure, climate, design, engineering, art, psychology, and economics. Its task is to hold these domains together, manage complexity, and, at its best, make spaces and places in which we can live better together. ...

The architect is an integrator. That is the architects's speciality. S/he is a conductor, not a soloist.

The Fox-like architect can cross over domains, lead public debate on the most pressing issues of the day, and work with the greatest power in the land to shape the future of our cities. 

They can do that because they do know, and need to know, many things. That's a good thing.

Between 1984 and 2003, psychologist Philip Tetlock, led an extensive study comparing the predictions of 284 experts, who he categorised as either Foxes or Hedgehogs. He found that a Hedgehog is “more likely to be overconfident … and slow to change their minds when they are wrong,” whereas a Fox “uses a variety of analytical tools, is more likely to be self-critical, and more likely to update their beliefs in response to new information.” 

After 20 years and 28,000 predictions, Tetlock was forced to conclude that Hedgehogs’ predictions were “no better than a dart-throwing chimpanzee,” and in some cases, they actually performed worse than random chance because they would systematically ignore events that didn’t fit their narrative. 

Responding to wider trends in professional services, architecture [however] embraced specialisation. In doing so, it has lost influence by steadily narrowing its scope. The discipline has allowed, and at times encouraged, scope to be subsumed by adjacent professions: transport planners, urban designers, cost consultants, interior designers, fire safety consultants, project managers, and a multitude of engineering disciplines. Today, the architect is one consultant among many. Foxes squeezed uncomfortably into Hedgehog costumes. ...

Medicine gives us a sense of how specialisation can be beneficial, and at the same time, risk missing the bigger picture. Few people would choose a generalist to perform critical heart surgery. But narrow specialism also comes at a cost, as it can leave no one answerable for the whole. 

We probably all know someone with a complex condition who passed through a maze of excellent specialists and still received poor care as there was no one there to join the dots. The body is an interconnected system, not just a collection of mechanical or biochemical parts. Complex cases sometimes need a Fox able to see the bigger picture, and cross between specialties. 

Like human bodies, cities are complex. ...  Over-specialisation, especially in professions such as architecture, means the value of the Fox is overlooked and undervalued. We continue to break down our cities into component parts and give each of those parts to Hedgehogs to optimise: housing driven by yields, streets by flow of traffic, buildings by fire safety codes, public space by maintenance costs. 

Parking requirements provide an example of Hedgehog thinking at its worst. Codifying minimum parking provision for housing, offices, shops, and restaurants seems reasonable in isolation. In aggregate, however, they use vast amounts of space in our cities, inflate the cost of housing, and encourage driving. In the U.S., there are up to two billion parking spaces, creating the surreal situation in many places where more land is devoted to parking cars than to housing people. This is what can happen when Hedgehogs optimize parts and forget the whole. 

Architect Kongjian Yu was an example of the Fox-like thinking at its best. Typically, water management is the narrow domain of drainage engineers and flood risk consultants: Hedgehogs aiming to flush water away as fast as possible through pipes and sewers. 

Yu brought together ideas from landscape architecture, Daoist philosophy, urban planning, drought and storm water management, traditional Chinese terraced farming practices, and from nature itself to develop the “Sponge City” concept. 

Instead of seeing rain as a nuisance to be expelled, a Sponge City follows the flow of water and where it ends up creates wetlands, swales, and swamps. By using the land to soak up and store water, the city creates a landscape that slows water down during wet periods and releases it during dry periods, like a sponge. What appears as an obvious insight has upended previous ways of thinking and launched a new discipline. 

Yu’s skill as a Fox was not just to make this technical and philosophical leap, but to then have the architectural skill and political influence to turn it into hundreds of new sponge-like public spaces, breathing new life into cities around the world from Chongqing to Copenhagen, Bangkok to Karachi.  

Cities are too large, too complex, and too important to be left to Hedgehogs alone. Architects matter not because they have mastered a specific instrument, but because they can bring the orchestra together, and in doing so make our cities better places to live.

"Nature Near"

I was lucky enough to be invited to contribute to the local Montessori Voices magazine, on the vital importance of bringing nature near. It's as important for little people as it for big ones ...

Five architectural "must-haves"

I have to confess that I get very little out of TV architecture programmes. The "Grand" of the design(s) too quickly becomes Grandomania.

But this snippet of five architectural "must-haves" that just popped up on Youtube has some very good points. Architect Steven 
Harris calls them his "non-negotiables," and he talks about them here in the context of his own house. It's not about their house's style—which you may or may not admire—it's about some simple principles on which it's based.

I've pasted the tips below, with my comments underneath each:

No. 1: Refine the entry experience: The first of architect Steven Harris’ 5 non-negotiables when designing his own home is determining the sense of approach. Rather than abrupt thresholds, the journey into the house is articulated as a gradual transition. From the initial glimpse across a golf course to the curved courtyard entry, each spatial reveal is calibrated. Inside, a stepped sitting room draws the eye to distant mountain views. This sequence generates anticipation, framing experience through a procession that’s both psychological and physical. 

It's a truism to say that first impressions count. Because they do. As marketers say, "There's no second chance to make that good first impression"—or to be introduced to the landscape a better way. 

So the way you (and your guests) are introduced to your home and the landscape beyond is critical, since it will leave a lingering impression. Most important here is to hold the important view until it achieves its maximum impact, so it will resonate deeply. To help this, use containment and release: masking the view until the right time, containing the space at the entrance, so that the view explodes once you're place into it.

No. 2: Create a strong link to nature: A seamless relationship between indoors and out is integral to the home, and the landscape design by David Kelly of RRP enables an easy flow between each domain. The architecture dissolves boundaries with landscaped berms and exterior gathering spaces that extend the footprint into the garden. At this site, the feeling is less like a house on a golf course and more like a pavilion in a park. By designing the contours of the land, the team create depth and intimacy, reinforcing a connection to the broader terrain while encouraging everyday interaction with nature. 

This is crucial. Human physiological needs are as important in a building as their structure. And as numerous researchers have confirmed, “The inherent human inclination to affiliate with nature, even in the modern world, continues to be critical to people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing.”  This intense human need to have ‘nature near,’ as architect Richard Neutra explained — to interweave structure and terrain — is not just a frivolous extra in our buildings, but a vital need.

No. 3: Consider the flow of movement: Flow and circulation are the third non-negotiable. Architect Steven Harris’ 5 non-negotiables when designing his own home emphasise the importance of reducing unused space. Hallways are minimal or absent, with rooms leading into one another in a sequence that promotes daily engagement. The guestrooms are detached, accessed through the garden, allowing the house to function as a single-bedroom retreat when unoccupied by visitors. This planning prioritises experience over expedience, ensuring all areas of the home are lived in and appreciated. 

Space that flow make a more comfortable place. In the best houses, you don't spend wasted minutes crossing and re-crossing hallways—you find yourself in the best places as the day progresses. Spaces interlink and interlock, sharing space and making the most of it. Every square metre used in a hallway is a wasted square metre. So use them sparingly.

No. 4: Understand your clients’ lifestyle: Fourth is programmatic clarity. Spaces are designed to reflect actual living patterns rather than ideals. Rooms often serve dual functions, like dining areas that double as workspaces or libraries. Television is integrated into the living room to ensure its frequent use. This principle stems from understanding daily rituals and designing around them. Architect Steven Harris’ 5 non-negotiables when designing his own home place emphasis on functionality that doesn’t sacrifice sophistication. 

It's absolutely essential to know what spaces your clients use most often, and when. Which means you must know in detail how they actually live. So do ask them to list what they're doing the house each day, and what time of day, and for how long. "The best way for a client to really think about what they need for a house," they say, "is to think about the process of each day and how they live it." Very true.

Not in agreement there with the television however [2], since reducing its frequent use is more important (and smaller devices mean the "family television" now gets less use anyway). But the point is a good one: design for the way you live, not the way a magazine or TV show thinks that you should.  Build in the daily rituals that give your life meaning. (And do be open to lettin the architecture suggest better ways to live.)

The final principle centres on scale and proportion. Rather than equating size with importance, the design treats intimacy as a metric of success. Volumes are generous without being overwhelming, with seating arranged to foster ease of conversation. The dressing room and bathroom are given as much attention as the bedroom itself. 

This perhaps is most important. There's a luxury in good design in that you're not making spaces bigger: you're making them just the right size. There are important human dimensions that we must build in, and fail at our peril. A conversation space, for instance, calls for a 3m radius from eyeball to eyeball. Make it bigger or smaller, and we're making a wasted space. Build in these human dimensions, and we're making a home that just feels right.

* * * *

There are other "non-negotiables" we all might have, but these are a good start. 

PS: Looking at Harris's beautiful home, one commenter quipped that the sixth non-negotiable would be an unlimited budget. Which is funny to say, but not truly necessary to have: because none of these elements require an extensive budget; they simply require thought. As Steven Harris says, if you don't get these things right—most especially the human dimensions—then "all the fancy materials in the western world aren't going to help."

It really is all about thinking it through.

* * * * 

[1] Stephen Kellert & Elizabeth Calabrese, The Practice of Biophilic Design (2015): 3

[2] Of course, their point here is that so many homes now offer a "media room" that takes folk away from the main living space on which you've lavished so much care. Now, clearly Americans watch too much television anyway, but I do think there's a good argument for the media room.
    When you just want to watch "the news" or a TV series, then a smaller screen is fine, and can be in lounge or dining space or wherever. But when a film director relies on a big screen (as any director should) or a sports broadcast demands much bigger screen real estate, then it's good to repair to a place dedicated to that function of enjoying the film (or the sports broadcast) on a dedicated big screen.

ARCHITECTURE MINI-TUTORIALS: "But how much can you *do* with a 70 square-metre house?!"

 THIS IS ONE OF THOSE rare things, a government announcement I can get behind:

“Last year the Government consulted on allowing\granny flats of up to 60 square metres to be built without building or resource consents. The proposal received huge support, and as a result the Government has agreed to go even further by increasing the maximum size to 70 square metres.” 

This is great news!

And it does look like it may actually happen — with the announcement yesterday that " Granny flats of up to 70sqm, and papakāinga of up to 10 homes would be allowed without a consent on specific land zones."

Never mind the misnomer "granny flat," When/if this is introduced, any house with a decent sized-section will now give owners the opportunity to add one new minor dwelling. (Let's call it that, shall we, rather than the more popular but slightly derisive 'granny flat'.)  One minor dwelling in all the places that's possible can do amazing things for making dwellings more affordable — helping make up for three decades of cementing in the opposite trend.

"But," I hear you ask, "how much can you do with a 70 square-metre house?!" Answer: a lot. If you do it right, a minor dwelling might even become your major dwelling.

To give you some idea of that size, until recently, the average size of a New Zealand house was 200 square metres. Now that we've been overdosing on bland, cooky-cutter townhouses, it's just under 160 squares. 

So even with that drop, a house of just 70 squares represents a fairly drastic compression of space.

So ... how much can you do with a 70 square-metre house?

Turns out, with a knowledge of good spatial design and a little bit of cunning, an awful lot.

Yes, I know those of you living in homes with kitchens the size of a large double garage won't fit in. But, for the record, I live in a very workable house of just 45 square metres. So to me, 70 square metres looks like a luxurious surplus of useable space!

So let's have a look at what a little bit of ingenuity and exploiting a few legal loopholes can do.

Architect James Schildroth recently designed this artful 2-bedroom 756 square-foot house below (around 70.2 square metres) and will make it available to build. In the States (where the sun is a different way around and building is much cheaper), he reckons it would cost around US$270,000....

Despite the size, it has almost all a home needs. There are several space-saving measures here (smaller bedrooms and closets, minimal kitchen, etc.) and a number of 'tricks' that help space appear larger—most especially carefullly "nesting" spaces, and opening spaces up at the corners. That low roof corner outside the lounge is especially effective, offering privacy from a possible neighbour, while also suggesting to occupants that the edge of the main space is defined by the outside edge of those overhanging eaves, at once both sheltering and opening up.

These psychological "tricks" are important in every home, but especially important in one so small, when every square metre has to justify itself many times over — space that's not just flexible, but hard-working!

Floor plan & diagram overlay for Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighy House (above) suggests how 'nesting' 

spaces within even a small home can help produce an illusion of larger space by virtue of the shared 

spaces — the particular space experienced depending on the observer's location at any point in time

HERE'S ANOTHER: A 72 SQUARE-METRE home-office by (Organon Architecture) over two levels, the lower of which is just 55 square metres, but with extensive pergolas — and a hill!

And you can do a whole lot with even less, if you're cunning enough.

The key, really is breaking the box. Understanding how to play with the visual field to suggest a larger apparent space.  And to properly 'nest' spaces so that every square metre within works harder, and suggests more.

Prefabricated modules and the like are part of the thing, but not the main thing. It's how modules and spaces are arranged that becomes the main thing.

HERE ARE SEVERAL MORE EXAMPLES. 

Several years ago, when it looked like Auckland Council were about to relax rules around 60-square-metre "minor dwellings," I was commissioned to produce a few floor plans and systems for what, it was anticpated, could have become a modest business. Sadly, the relaxing of rules never happened, and my client instead decided to try for better things in Queensland. But the idea is there in each of these homes: that a modestly-sized home need not feel small if it is well laid out.  

The aim was to build these homes on a precast-prestressed concrete transportable deck — using a container module in order to show the many limitations of container design, and to allow factory-built homes to be fully transported if possible. They featured both "ceiling decks," to help with services and the manipulation of space,  and a "smart slab" in which dimensions were set for the builder and in which all main services were to be run as a "plug-and-play" system.

I did modify one of these designs to be built in a small town in Victoria. (See if you can work out which design...?)

Anyway, take a look. There were around a dozen ...

Like I say, you can do lot with sixty metres. Let alone what you can do with seventy!