Local Architecture : A Return to a Place, Craft, and community by Brian MacKay-Lyons - Princeton

Brian MacKay-Lyons

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Rick Joy

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Rick Joy Experience of place, presence of mind, authenticity of spirit and genuineness of origins are at the root core of making the architecture of enthusiastic dwelling of home in a specific place. Beyond the object that is being photographed, the architecture of home is what is being graciously enlivened. Home is the stage for personal events, where daily life and momentary dramas unfold in spaces that we design and build as Architects. Spaces that condition behaviors as much as they are, eventually, conditioned by their inhabitants.

When thinking about a new design for a home, we consider the nuances of inhabitation of a place through dialogue and comprehensive observance and intuit the atmospheric qualities of life scenarios that the home we are crafting is going to stage. One can gain a sense of place only from taking the time to become intimately immersed in the particular natural characteristics and light qualities that make it unique at a broad range of scales; as well as getting to know the human culture and its rituals, memories and meaning. And further, taking the time to look closely at the wisdom of the established building culture of place is required before exactitude or tectonic eloquence can occur.

From my practice I know that when there is courage to make a bold architectural proposition in designing a place for living, a proposition that is grounded in a realistic interpretation of human lifestyle, a proposition that can be conceptually thought about first, then all these reflections can be synthesized into the making of an insightful and giving architectural work. These characteristics do not guarantee great architecture, but livable architecture might not happen without them.

This notion focuses on the nuances of how a home can attune certain personal and family life and behaviors. For a place to become a home is a dynamic,

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personal process of growth over time. Where the moments of living flourish into a

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progressing collection of stories that are multiplied into layers of time, place and memory. Home can harbor and reveal the mental and physical patinas of experience over time. Home can be a place where hearts and souls tune in to the present and past. Home is where the heart is.

Dorothy was right.

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Marlon Blackwell

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Tom Kundig

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Tom Kundig

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