THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 28 NOON on WPKN 89.5FM and streaming at wpkn.org
Host: Duo Dickinson
Every living thing has a home. For some its just the ocean, or open country, a natural shelter like a cave or a dead tree. Others actually build their place to live: Bird’s nest for laying eggs, moles burrow, bees hive, beavers go nuts layering up wood – but only humans design their homes with beauty in mind: its more than just protection, home is a reflection of who we are, a projection of what we value, and a design that offers spaces and shapes that deal with how we use the building we call home.
This often means “design”, either by the occupier, the builder, the architect if there is one: but an abstract eye whats the place where we live to be an accommodation of how we live, what we think is important and a personal statement of what we think beauty is. For many its simply decoration; paint color, art, the furniture we love. But for some it involves the next level of commitment and intensity.
Many build how they want to live to create a home: whether is a new opening, room, wing, or a whole house, building a place manifests the most essential of human priorities – Pride of Place. This means creating beauty by building it. And then living in beauty, or simply letting the world see what the home builder believes is beauty.
But do we learn to design better if we actually build what we design?
But most architects go through school with little more than a course or two in building anything, in all probability the majority of designers are not taught the craft of building except in hands-off images. And in truth its getting worse. Traditionally 95% of homes are designed by a pre-existing style. The idea of sui generis home creation is not the norm for new homes: we tend to build what we know in home creation, because its accepted truth that anything “different” costs more time and money: so Hands Off! – treat your new home like a car: a make and model with a price tag. This does not have to be true.
Without building knowledge designers are off the hook for the creative reinterpretation of how a building is made buildable: the middle layer between idea and construction is approaching a hands-off automation that saves time, design cost and insures safe construction with pre-known cost implications of both construction and use.
What is lost when your home is made like your car?
Lets find out: joining us today are 3 people who are living the value of building in the design of building. David Getzin is part of a brand new graduate program in architecture at UniSOB – Suor Orsola Benincasa Universty in Naples Italy called “Building Beauty” http://www.buildingbeauty.net he has devoted his professional life to creating (with many others, now including me) a new way to teach architecture at the graduate, professional level. He will tell us how Beauty and building have been working hand-in-hand for thousands of years: and now, maybe, in a revolutionary way.
Alan Organschi is an award-winning architect from New Haven – over 20 years ago he and his wife, Lisa Gray created Gray Organschi Architecture, http://grayorganschi.com and Alan has become the director of the Jim Vlock First Year Building Program at Yale University: http://architecture.yale.edu/student-life/vlock-building-project he teaches the hands-on to those who are living the rare air of Ivy Graduate School Design Education: and they build a house every summer
And John Connell is a Vermont architect at 2morrow Studio http://prefab2morrow.com who has written books, too – and who helped build the Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Warren Vermont https://yestermorrow.org/?_vsrefdom=adwords&gclid=CJPouqGHxdYCFYOPswodAAkCEQ who teaches anyone, at any level of design or craft training and experience in the cross-pollinating value of building what you design – from a shelf to a home, and larger.
