Architecture as Soul
Architecture manifests within the visible landscape as an extension of the invisible will to become.
As such, each space is a combination of surfaces, edges, texture, and color, whose poetic structure lies latently pregnant and poignant with the overarching need to be and to be expressed. These sentiments are ubiquitous in Nature and are represented in my designs and poetics, not biomimetically, but as universal structures of mind, metaphors for the self, luminous and transcendent within the soul. In reflecting the language of each site, an intersubjective relationship manifests between the building and the observer. It is within this intersubjective space, we understand this inherent language, and we communicate proto-consciously with our surroundings, with the Other, as a direct reflection of our shadow selves. In the soul of every project is an essential semiotic structure of symbols and meaning, the language of the Being The building becomes an interpretation of that inherent meaning and expression of this language developed from the signs and symbols referenced within the site. Design is participatory as a matter of understanding the dialogue between the site and the seer.
Core Beliefs
Selected Reading List
Architecture as Landscape
The natural landscape provides clues to our existence, to our sustainability, and our survival.
By humanizing Nature through art, we adorn her with jewels and song - we build skillful artifacts of this existence. We are temporary beings with the inner nature of a permanent soul - a soul who's function is to coalesce within the threshold of meaning, to transcend the physical. By mimicking patterns in the natural environment, patterns of growth and flow, and using the logic of ancient natural geometry, images are anthropomorphized as architectural shapes while spaces penetrate from the silent unknown source of creativity.
Architecture as Other
As such, I am developing a special process I call "geomimetic" design, which represents, or mimics, the processes and forces of the Earth, It is an umbrella phrase which encompasses the art of biomimicry, but on a larger, more universlal level. I grow an idea from the forces and process of the site, of the program, and of the beliefs of the clients themselves. The metaphysical structure is both poetic and violent attesting to the tension and compression of our inner nature and to the forces and processes of the earth.
Bachelard, Gaston, the Poetics of Space, 1958 (1967).
Bachelard, Gaston, On Poetic Imagination and Reverie, 1971 (1987).
Barks, Coleman, The Essential Rumi, 1995.
Benedikt, Michael, For an Architecture of Reality, 1987.
Gibson, James J., The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, 1966.
Gibson, James J., The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, 1986.
Jammer, Max, Concepts of Space: The History of Theories of Space in Physics, 1954
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought, 1999.
Pallasmaa, Juhani, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses, 2005.
Tanizaki, Jun'ichiro, In Praise of Shadows, 1977.
Turner, Victor, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, 1969.
Mead, George H., Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, 1934.
Design Ideas
Every space is different. Every structure has its unique reason for existing and unique language developed by the site.
I will generate hundreds of ideas before arriving at the perfect one for a project or client. It's a necessary part of the creative architectural process and one that I take seriously. Here's how I do it:
Start with a project mission statement developed along with the Client.
Along with the Client, develop the program and produce bubble diagrams and quick sketches of the site.
Generate architectural poetics, and assign incidental meaning to materials, forms and spaces.
Review natural aspects of the site; terrain, vegetation, topography, critical geographic patterns, sun and shadow patterns, drainage, orientation and views.
Develop initial design ideas, images, and poetics based on natural characteristics of the site.
Develop initial design parti, the essence of the design language, and how the building can be placed and configured to express the language of the specific landscape.
Layout floor plans while keeping the forms and elevations in mind. Layout floor plans while keeping the main parti in mind. Develop elevations parametrically, in relation to and concurrently with, the floor plans. Develop the site vertically.
Produce SketchUp drawing models, renderings, and color boards, indicating proposed forms and materials.
Once a design is complete and approved by the Client, I develop construction documents in AutoCAD, including site plan, details, sections, roof plans, ceiling plans, and basic engineering plans for use for permitting and construction.
I then review goals and objectives that includes milestones and contingencies and assist Client in procuring a building permit.
Administration of the construction contract is negotiable based on Client needs.
"The word "soul" is an immortal word. In certain poems it cannot be effaced, for it is a word born of our breath."
- - Gaston Bachelard, the Poetics of Space, p. xvi.