WU WEI HOUSE - POST NUMBER 1

This is not the beginning. Good stories don’t start at the beginning.

The sun warmed my back as I knelt and pounded the wood stake into the earth. This spot would be the corner of a new home. This is the first physical indication of what might come to be. Well, the ten-thousand-dollar sewer tap came first but that’s not very exciting.

I pulled a tape measure from my warn tool belt and attached the end to the stake. The leaves crunched as I walked sixty-eight feet down the slope of our lot. I stood and envisioned the house in my mind. I stretched the tape taught. Then took two steps backwards thinking if I get a little closer to this tree, I can save three other trees. 

A speculation or (Spec) building describes a situation when someone is not building for their own use but with the belief that the end product will be more valuable than the cost to create it. The difference between the cost to build and the sale price will be profit, or loss. 

However, to me the word speculation has other meanings. My tattered websters dictionary suggests speculative can mean; meditation, pondering, theoretical, not practical, risky.  This build will be an adventure a journey into the challenging world of construction. It will also be an intellectual exploration into deeper questions. Why do we build? What do we truly hope to achieve? We humans often believe we make things to have and use them. We often forget that we define ourselves and our world as we make things. As we make things, they make us.

Before driving this stake in the ground, I spent an insane number of hours designing and redesigning versions of what should be a simple house on a half-acre wooded lot. Based on the little models that rest beside my drawing board this is the tenth version. That’s a lot even for me, I usually nail it by version seven. However, I believe, or I should say must believe, this is the best iteration, and the years of searching will be worth it. 

But now we must start construction of this house. My wife Kris and I have been peering over this precipice far too long. If we don’t jump, we won’t be able to jump. Fears that we cannot overcome the challenges we know are to come will take hold and we will languish. The fault in this hesitation lies purely with me. I am a planner, but planning can become procrastination. 

So, after a few wonderful hours on a Sunday afternoon, that just so happens to be the first day of spring, stakes and colored tape outline the footprint of what will be a beautiful house. Hundreds of sketches and computer drawings have been translated into this earth outline. Most would see a rectangle made of thin colored tape, but we see so much more.

VISION OF THE WU WEI HOUSE ON THE LAND

ARE WE FROGS

A child bends down and lovingly grasps a frog from a creek edge stone. This is not happening in a video game the child is playing outside in nature. 

At home the child’s mother finds a shoebox for her daughter’s new pet. They place the frog in the box and puncture the box with a sharp pencil. The sundry holes in the box provide the frog with a minimum of daylight and air. The frog survives for a time, but I wonder if it is happy? Does the frog long for the stone as it views the world through tiny apertures inside the dark box?

Then I wonder, in my odd way, why we do the same thing to ourselves?

Most homes are boxes with random holes punches in them. The doors and windows that I call holes are kept to a minimum because they are expensive. In a typical suburban house, the openings are placed based on plans created by someone who has never set foot on the earth where the house is to be built. No one has observed that windows in one location provide a wonderful view or sunlight at a particular part of the day. No one has observed that windows in another location will peer into the neighbor’s bedroom. Unless peering into the neighbor’s bedroom is your thing the window will have to be covered. A covered window is not a window.

We so often just don’t seize the opportunity to open our homes to outside to nature. We punch a few holes in our boxes and consider that good enough. We provide ourselves the minimum daylight view and air to survive. But I wonder if minimizing our connection to nature makes us as happy as we could be in our dwellings? I wonder why it seems we treat ourselves like captured frogs.

The point is so many of our typical dwellings could be greatly improved by simply investing more thought into the location and size of their openings.

THE EXTERIOR COURTYARD IS AN EXTENSION OF THE SPACE

WHAT IS AN ARCHITECT

The oracle of our times, Google, says an architect is a person who designs buildings and often oversees their construction. Okay Google, but isn’t there more to it than that? 

Legally an architect is a person who is licensed to practice architecture in the jurisdiction where the building is to be built. To become a licensed architect, you must fulfill educational requirements (5 years minimum), experience requirements (3 years minimum), pass exams (7), and of course pay fees (I lost count). It takes about as long to become an architect as it does to become a doctor or a lawyer. However, if you persist you will receive an ornate document that says you are licensed to practice architecture. You will also get a seal with a number which gives the right to be sued should anything go wrong. Drawings for commercial buildings generally require the seal of a licensed architect. Drawings for residential buildings generally do not. 

But those milestones didn’t feel like the whole story to me. The day a guy in a nightdress handed me a diploma I didn’t feel like an architect. The day I got my first job in an architecture firm I didn’t feel like an architect. The day I passed the licensing exam I did not feel like an architect. I did however celebrate each achievement with gusto!

Becoming an architect, I realized was not something someone else could bestow upon me. For me the issue was more complicated. At what point does someone wake up and believe they are an artist? I suppose after creating a few works of art a thoughtful person may define themselves as an artist. That’s the way it happened for me. 

Long after achieving the legal requirements, it slowly occurred to me that I was an architect. I accepted that title because I had designed and overseen the construction of a few buildings that I considered to be architecture. In the end it seems only an artist knows if they are an artist. 

The point is that there are specific definitions of an architect, and they are important. But there are also more general artistic passions that are also important, especially if you want to create a wonderful place.  

ONE OF THE FIRST AWARD WINNING BUILDINGS I DESIGNED