Before You Start Designing there are some exercises you can go through to help you get a better handle on your new home or remodel. Grab a tape measure and a pad of paper. Enlist the help of everyone who lives there (or visits regularly), including small children (they can hold the “dumb” end of the tape). You may have already done these exercises mentally, but it is good to commit them to paper. Getting them sorted will help you explain your expectations to your architect/designer and builder.
Mies van Der Rohe said “less is more”. At first, this thought seems to make sense. But Milton Glazer has a more nuanced position that I think nails it. He said:
Being a child of modernism I have heard this mantra all my life. Less is more. One morning upon awakening I realised that it was total nonsense, it is an absurd proposition and also fairly meaningless. But it sounds great because it contains within it a paradox that is resistant to understanding. But it simply does not obtain when you think about the visual of the history of the world. If you look at a Persian rug, you cannot say that less is more because you realise that every part of that rug, every change of colour, every shift in form is absolutely essential for its aesthetic success. You cannot prove to me that a solid blue rug is in any way superior. That also goes for the work of Gaudi, Persian miniatures, art nouveau and everything else. However, I have an alternative to the proposition that I believe is more appropriate. ‘Just enough is more.’
I couldn’t agree more.
Subtitled: Plan Book vs. Draftsman vs. Contractor vs. Architect
There are very few of us who undertake any building project without some planning. We try and figure out what we need, how it’s going to be put together and how much it’s going to cost us. For some projects, we plan it out in our heads. For others, we take pencil to paper and draw it out. Then, there are the projects that we know we can’t do ourselves. For these, we need to hire a designer.
Designers come in many different varieties. There’s the contractor who designs it himself. There are designers who’ll draft up your plans. There’s your good friend down the street. And there are architects. What’s the difference? Does it matter? What is each one going to give you for your money? And why should you pick the Architect?
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