The Owner Built Home & Homestead
(Page 8 of 23)
Thoreau said:
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What of architectural beauty I now see, I know has
gradually grown from within outward, out of the necessities
and character of the indweller, who is the only
builder— out of some unconscious truthfulness,
and nobleness, without ever a thought for the appearance,
and whatever additional beauty of this kind is destined to
be produced will be preceded by a like unconscious beauty
of life.
BUILDING SITE
The above sketch illustrates some of the more important
site conditions which can and should play a dominant role
in influencing the design of the well-planned, owner-built
home. Influences of site on building design are little
understood and little appreciated aspects of conventional
building construction. Nevertheless, they are aspects which
affect every person who uses the building. The realized
design, in turn, affects the site, and these two features
condition one's life and plans for years to come.
It seems entirely logical to me that every individually
designed home should have more than the usual degree of
site planning. Besides being expressive of its owner's
life, a home should be at one with its site and regional
ethos. A man building his own home can afford to spend the
time necessary to acquaint himself with the
physionomic-climate site environment. The speculative or
commercial builder usually fails to take enough time from
his actual house-building program to know the character of
the land upon which he is building. Results of this neglect
are always unfortunate.
When the individual prospective home builder becomes
acquainted with even a few of the specific site conditions
found on his plot, he will come to appreciate the fact that
sites tend to vary as much as people. No two sites are the
same; no two regions are the same; no two climates are the
same. Hence every building design problem must be solved
individually. I should add, of course, that no two persons
are the same, nor do they have the same needs. We are
dealing with three independent, though inter-related,
components; people, site and building. Both visually and
actually, the building exists only in relationship to the
site and surrounding landscape. And in the same manner, the
site exists in relation to people—through the
introduction of the house.
It is important to consider the house and site as one
indivisible whole. The house-planning and site-planning
process must go on together, with equal consideration to
the design of every square foot of indoor-outdoor space.
Lawns and workshops and gardens contain essences of their
own; and it is as important to the total design concept
that these be adequately expressed as it is that the
essence of "living room" be expressed. It is something of a
help to think of the house and site as a coordinating
grouping of related indoor and outdoor rooms. In
contemporary design work we are apt to concern ourselves
with the psychophysiological requirements of interior
space, and exclude a consideration for the equally strong
need which people have for a satisfying relationship to the
outdoors. The control or lack of control of climate can be
as important a design feature as the determination of the
refinement of interior surface materials. One's
relationship to view or to plants can be an extremely
significant design feature, as I will try to illustrate.
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