Coming home as an architect
This month’s chosen topic was Homecoming. Homecoming makes me think of football…which I really don’t care about. But homecoming can also be the act of returning to a familiar place…a sense of coming home…perhaps even if you haven’t been there before because it’s your first night in your new place. A great design by an architect will give you that feeling – one of the many reasons it’s worth hiring an architect to do your design instead of building from a plan in a magazine. But what does the act of coming home feel like for an architect? Do we practice what we preach?
Note: This is the twenty-ninth post in a group series called #ArchiTalks. This month’s topic is “Homecoming”.
As most of you know, I’m in the (extended) process of renovating the L² Design Lab, lovingly called #ThisOldHouse. I’m also an extroverted introvert, which means my home is my sanctuary – my place to recharge. Some may think this is an oxymoron. How can coming home to an 1890’s Victorian that’s missing ceilings, windows, and a quality kitchen be relaxing? How can living out of one room (nicknamed the “war room”) in the house for the first year of ownership while you strategically attack different rooms to renovate them…recharge your batteries?
Well…I’m an architect. Which means I’m wired a bit differently.
Coming home from work…to work on making a space my own…makes the next day coming home feel even more like my own. I can tell you more about the history of the place I call home since having torn down walls and ceilings than I could before. That a previous owner taught piano lessons and played music and that’s why she thought it was a good idea to glue 2×2 acoustical tile to the dining room ceiling (ugh).
but I also made the space my own by removing the door between that room and the master bedroom. Instead of a single twin mattress in the war room (shared with M)…
…I can now look forward to coming home to a master bedroom I designed myself, down to the bulkhead details.
A lot of my days of late have involved coming home to a mess of an exterior and backyard. But just like that first year in a single room, I know the wait and the mess is well worth it.
Soon I will be coming home to a relaxing backyard and a fresh coat (or three) of paint on the siding.
I will be coming home to a house that is *my* home; my personality stamped into the house through the latest visible design intervention.
To see the take on “Moonlighting” from other Architects, follow the links to the others in the #ArchiTalks group who are posting today on the theme:
- Lee Calisti – Think Architect (@LeeCalisti) “looking back I wonder”
- Brian Paletz – The Emerging Architect (@bpaletz) “Homecoming Memories”
- Gabriela Baierle-Atwood – GBA (@gabrielabaierle) “My Ode to Fargo”
- James Mehaffey – Yeoman Architect (@jamesmehaffey) “Is It a Homecoming If You Never Left?”
- Michael Riscica – Young Architect (@YoungArchitxPDX) “Homecoming & Looking Back”
- Jane Vorbrodt – Kuno Architecture (@janevorbrodt) “Looking Back Through the Pages”
- Eric Faulkner – Rock Talk (@wishingrockhome) “9-11 — A Look Back”
- Michele Grace Hottel – Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel) Homecoming
- Kyu Young Kim – J&K Atelier (@sokokyu) “Homecoming, in 3 Parts”
- Nisha Kandiah – ArchiDragon (@ArchiDragon) “Just give me a reason : Homecoming”
- Mark Stephens – Mark Stephens Architects (@architectmark) “Homecoming”
- Matthew Stanfield – FIELD9: architecture (@FIELD9arch) “Coming Home to Architecture”
