Poetic ? Pragmatic: Design inclinations

My mother had funny ways of trying to connect with my professional activities.  In the most accusatory tone, she would claim that all an architect really wanted was to be a poet.  I have written poetry:

When I think back to the beginning of time

Artists have struggled to make things refined.

Philosophers ancient and modern agree

To do so has requirements three.

and then the poem goes on to describe the Vitruvian triad:  firmitatis, utilitatis, venustatis (strength, utility and grace); the attributes of all design.  Nevertheless, I hardly consider myself a poet.  On the other hand, no client of mine has even asked for or have I ever offered a design I consider purely pragmatic.  Absolute functionalism may be the target for those interested in efficient design free from ornament or any unnecessary aspect.  In other words, design with the absolute economy of the cheapest materials producing buildings with the lowest cost per square foot.  This results in an impermanent object not likely to last long, such as big box buildings with a projected life of five years.   No one claims such buildings are architecture.

The designer as poet is reaching for two things:  the precise choice of elements – words or objects – and the openness created in between which allows for the other’s imagination.  This vague terrain may be found at all scales of design from the humble clay pot to a city.  It is in these spaces, real or abstract, that people find their own voice, their own sentiment and then their own opportunity of expression.  Poetic design frames such possibilities.  The designer as pragmatist is reaching for something even more difficult to achieve:  a design that works so well that its form in material become synonymous with the object:  the design is the meaning.  From ergonomically-designed objects to the IPod, pragmatic design imbeds the poetic, and vice versa.  The reactive imagination and the appreciative use blend to the point that they are indistinguishable.

Teaching design with this goal in mind presents the only challenge that is really worth considering because, if you are successful to any degree, you have supported a learning experience that transcends the particular momentary design problem and is a process applicable to any design endeavor.  This method does not take the form of a recipe, nor is it haphazard experimentation.  I think it combines activities of understanding a physical material’s inherent capabilities, of appreciating the human body and how it wants to work in the world, and of the asking a good question.  What if . . . poses the situation of a design investigation.  Judicial subtraction eliminates extraneous and competing motives.  Checking bigger and smaller scales intensifies the design by making its proper fit more specific.

The relational paradigm of poetics | pragmatics poses neither the conventional Western duality of either/or, nor the Janus-like two-faced dilemma where one is the privation of the other.  Rather, they are linked simply because the best poem serves a purpose just as superior functioning design is poetic.  Some call this the beautiful, but who today considers beauty the goal of design?

A Valley in the Sierra Nevadas

The Sierra Nevada mountain range is on the western side of the Great Basin opposite the Rockies.  In southwestern Nevada, there is another smaller mountain range called the Pine Nuts Mountains.  Between them is a broad desert valley full of sage brush.  Here glider planes set world records by working their way back and forth up to 30,000 feet off air currents as if they were in an aerial half-pipe.  The desert terrain is full of quail and rabbits, and there are snakes and scorpions although I’ve never seen one.  Hawks and eagles perch on high tree branches and telephone poles watching for prey invisible to me.  The place is full of life, but not in ways familiar to my east coast sensibilities.

This was once Wasatch Indian territory.  After the Mexican Cession of 1848, Mormons built settlements in the region ultimately establishing their permanent home in Salt Lake City in 1857.  Miners arrived with the discovery of the Comstock Lode in 1859, and ranchers found the land was good for cattle grazing.  They dug gullies along horse trails to divert and collect rainwater, and sluice gates controlled irrigated fields of grain for feed.  A natural hot spring supported a resort Mark Twain visited to relieve his rheumatism.

Nevada needs no state income tax because of gambling revenues, and this has attracted development of another kind.  During the pre-recession boom, track housing sprang up like algae blooms, and spread in ways that necessitate complete dependence on the car.  Today the state has the highest unemployment rate in the nation at over 14% and the second highest rate of house foreclosures after Florida.  In this valley, five-acre zoning has resulted in what looks like pens for the wealthy with shiny, white PVC fences surrounding lots impossible to “landscape” to a non-local ideal, and houses that can’t resolve the competing conflict between being open to the astonishing views and being protected from the intense sun.

These human efforts pale in comparison to the scale of the landscape.  The quiet is deep and feels eternal.  Cold northern winds and warmer ocean breezes mark the seasons more than changing foliage.  Copious snow melts run off the mountains in streams shaping foothills like folds of great hoop skirts.  The morning mist hovers between valley and mountains.  Spectacular sunrises and sunsets are reflected on mountain faces as both a prelude and echo of shadow and light to such a degree that the colors in the sky above one mountain range compete with the reflected ground on the other.  People who have found a way to live here relish the rugged conditions and have one request:  “Don’t write anything that makes people want to live here.”  Whether the ecological balance of this desert valley landscape is so fragile that human development will eventually destroy the very characteristics that attracted people here in the first place, or these activities are no more than insignificant scratches on the land, remains to be seen.  To belong here, though, clearly requires yielding to a place that is greater than you.

Water: Element, Compound or Feature?

Nothing makes me cringe faster than hearing a student or professional landscape architect refer to a part of their design as a water feature.  The wide-eyed stares I get back from my objection beg for an explanation.  This is not simple.  

My understanding of water draws from the eloquent essay by Ivan Illich, “H²O and the Waters of Forgetfulness.”  Locating cultural memory in the deep and contradictory character of formless water, Illich explores its history noting the cleansing and purifying properties through cultures and epochs.  The critical question for the human use of water, either in the public landscape or the domestic bath, is the one that asks in what way can water in design support dwelling.  If water is thought of as only the means to live hygienically in dense cities, then it becomes a commodity to collect, treat, circulate, collect, and repeat.  Water management becomes a factor of infrastructure facilities, and water is only another natural resource available for human consumption.  If, on the other hand, water is understood as the fundamental locus of flowing dreams, then its power to cleanse and to purify becomes part of the sustaining, choreographed relationship possible between nature and dwelling.

The safety we insist upon in public space often prevents the necessary dual character of water from being apparent.  Water is both life-sustaining and dangerous.  Municipal lawyers must be pleased with mist fountains and fearful of pools, but it is hard to sink the poetic imagination into a perforated stone plaza, although the kids cool off just the same.  So too, bathing rituals in the home, if not omitted altogether, have be reduced to squeezing large porcelain vessels into a bathroom “suite” layout along with the toilet (for elimination) and lavatory and shower (for cleansing).

When dwelling is allowed to be an intense activity and not just an unaware series of events, then water is welcomed as a vehicle of change.  In physical and mental purifying, water removes the unwanted thereby releasing what has been inhibited.  It is possible for water in the public landscape to hold the collective spirit of a community through the festivals and rituals that take place there and to come to define the local culture.  Privately, water for bathing sheds its association with external cleansing and takes on its power to purify.  It changes the flesh through temperature and pressure.  Warmer or cooler, the submerged body feels more intensely the different gravitational presence of water compared to air.  When the flesh yields to the medium, the altered senses perceive a washing away that leaves behind refreshed feelings.  Designing for such a possible experience is thwarted by many factors:  the overly cautious lawyers already mentioned, as well as glaring light, blocked views, abrasive sounds, and distracting surfaces.  Water  contained in public fountains or pools, or in private baths, can transport thinking into dreaming simply by washing away all that prevents a person from being in that natural state.

Kitchens for dwelling

Kitchen design is complicated.  When successful, kitchens combine the highly practical with the emotionally appealing.  Any design must consider both the room itself and the appliances, cabinets and furniture that furnish it.  Just as we distinguish ordinary eating from elegant dining, kitchens operate with gadgets, but are also places of genuine creation.  After all, it was Nero Wolfe who said that cooking was the kindest of the arts.

Having designed hundreds of kitchens, I begin by thinking about the room:  the morning light, the connections to the garden and house interior, and the overall feeling of the space.  Clients should analyze the way they cook and select appliances to support the desired experience.  Storage can either destroy a kitchen layout or enable its smooth function.  Items that are used occasionally should be stored remotely or in cellars which once were places to stockpile provisions promising a well-fed winter.  Storing food, either cold or at room-temperature, should be in adjacent refrigerators and pantries.  Before the inventions of electricity and central heat, the hearth was a place of thermal comfort and socializing.  Now the cooktop or range serves this purpose.  Perhaps influenced by watching cooking shows or sit-coms with friends gathered around an active cook, this is the Kitchen’s heart.  Ample flanking counter space keeps cooking here safe and easier.  A distinct clean-up area with sink and dishwasher allows preparation, cooking and clean-up activities to occur simultaneously, or at least to not interfere with each other.

Kitchens are also places of calm and reflection.  There should be a comfortable place to read through cookbooks finding a recipe, or to sow herb in little pots set on south-facing windowsills, or to supervise homework.  They can be rooms to display collections showing a connoisseurship of expertise or interesting travel.

 

Some cautions:  the table and chairs must fit the space otherwise they are a constant annoyance; pick clear colors with no association to the color of spoiled food; replace dishtowels frequently as rags make everything seem run-down; and plan extensive artificial lighting with strong task lighting for every work surface, and dimmable or soft lighting for dining or just to make an inviting look.  Selecting countertops is one of the more expensive decisions.  Centuries ago, Pliny the Elder cautioned Pompeii villa owners about the audacity of cutting noble mountains and veneering their walls with marble surfaces; and then we use granite slabs for countertops.  Granite is a porous material that stains, and there are few homeowners who enjoy the annual maintenance chore of re-sealing their kitchen countertops.  Rather, there are several new sustainable products made from recycled materials, especially glass, which is hard, smooth, doesn’t stain, and sparkles with the light.  Similarly, cabinets need not be chosen as if this room was a mahogany library, but rather select woods that are sustainably harvested and do not produce off-gases.  New products for floors include bamboo and linoleum made from linseed oil.  In the past, home economics covered techniques for making a clean and healthy home, and this found currency in hygienic kitchens with hard surfaces and ingenious ways of storing food to keep vermin out.  This is still a priority, but with the potential pleasure of engaging in the culinary arts.

Landscape Oriented Development

New Urbanists and Smart Growth planners have identified new approaches for urban growth including Transit Oriented Development or TOD.  In Dhiru Thadani’s book, The Language of Towns & Cities, contributor Jennifer Hurley describes an implementation method as SmartCode, a model for American cities shifting from use-based to form-based zoning codes that promotes a mix of building scales and uses, and prioritizes the pedestrian.  While it makes economic sense to cluster high-density development near mass transit hubs, is linking such construction to transportation access a likely formula for satisfactory dwelling?  The missing piece, I suggest, is the landscape, and not just a few tree-lined streets and tot lots, but equivalently developed parks linked to wilder places with streams and wildlife.  What if TOD became LOD, or Landscape Oriented Development?

Recently, the state of Maryland opened most of a $2.5 billion dollar project called the Intercounty Connector, which is an 18-mile, six-lane toll highway that connects the major arteries of Interstates 270 and 95.  As a transportation project, its purpose is to improve mobility along with the related benefits of safety and accessibility.  Most of the project is located through sprawl, the existing suburban housing developments typical of Washington’s metropolitan area.  Over sixty years in the planning, this highway is for cars and trucks, and critics were opposed to the use of vast public resources for transportation projects that do not develop mass-transit systems; something most land use specialists identify as critical to urban densification and sustainable growth.

As expected, the highway is lined with 29 miles of sound barriers as it skirts or splits existing neighborhoods represented by 56 homeowner and community associations.  What is unusual is the extent of the environmental remediation measures taken to restore and to protect 48 acres of wetlands, over 38,000 linear feet of streams, and 88 acres of parkland.  Working with floodplains sometimes required the temporary relocation of turtles and other Rare, Threatened and Endangered, and forest interior dwelling species.  Over 15 percent of the total budget was spent to mitigate the construction’s impact.  Bridges and elevated highways as well as land deckovers separate the road from ecologically sensitive land.  The attention to the impact was so great that the project became known as an environmental restoration project with a highway running through it. 

However, any significant investment in public infrastructure that perpetuates our car-centered society should be challenged.  It is not enough to restore fragile habitats often degraded by inconsiderate past development.  Taxpayers want benefits from such expenditures not only because it shortens computing time, but also because it improves where they live.  Communities close to woods, streams and parks are valuable, and are especially important for children living in dense urban areas.  While it is desirable to have a subway station within walking distance of your home, it is also important to have a place to play Pooh sticks.  Communities that have both, had designers who thought about the social human need to be together, and the need to cultivate a relationship with the natural world.