001 / to create a new language this designer’s search for a better way forward, because there are no neutral spaces
I've contemplated a knotted sense of what this wants to be for the better part of a decade. Today, I've made the decision that unraveling this idea should happen through the practice of the work itself, and not wait until the day it's all known, all planned. So, what is it?
It's an inner knowing that built spaces hold a charge. That humans spend an overwhelming majority of our time indoors and that we're in constant dialogue with the elements of environment and atmosphere– the seen and the unseen. I can speak as an architect to proportions, windows, walls, and floors, but I'm much more interested in the liminal, the connective tissue, the unseen space where body and soul meet the vessels in which we spend our lives. What would it look like if we approached spaces with this idea at the forefront? What would that unseen charge hold for our rest, our creativity, our connection to ourselves? What about the connection to those that share in our spaces and our lives? Here, I offer only any credentialed expertise I've gathered, an unwavering obsession with considering this connection, and a commitment to explore it in both language and in practice. It's not for professional designers and it's certainly not for academics, but all are welcome to what I hope becomes more of a community than a TED talk. It is for anyone with a body who relates or seeks to relate to built space: a home, a studio, a conscious place of business. Ownership and construction are not prerequisite; This is an effort to unearth beauty in the everyday, the small ways have equal measure to the grand gestures.
There are many paths in this exploration, but one thing is for certain: the way we relate to, produce, and create space is in need of an evolution. I'd like to explore a new language, one more closely aligned with meaning, longevity, and purposeful creation, and away from distrust, free labor, the temporary, and the toxic. I could call it one approach to sustainability, because it is, but I much prefer to call it a love letter. From the bedroom forts of my childhood to the creation of homes and hotels I've so far dedicated my adult life to, there's one thing I know for certain: Our spaces are powerful, oft-overlooked vehicles for self-exploration, connection, and growth. And what if that was a medium with which we work to create art? What if space was a modality we work with and shape towards a whole, meaningful life?
Here, I intend to share my thoughts, research, and practices on engaging a relationship of self and space. It won't be without ideas of beauty, values, health, and a bit of the spiritual – but you'll find this work to be grounded in the scientific, the architectural, the measurable. Like all worthy pursuits, it's a dance of art and science towards an idea that transcends a prescribed discipline.
This knotted notion, however small, is a gesture away from the consumer and towards the collector, away from transactional services and towards meaningful co-creation, away from mainstream trends and towards a new syntax of architecture, away from cutting corners and towards permanence, away from hustle and towards spaciousness, away from the marketplace and towards a conversation.