“Each of these experiences … has its own scale, character, texture and effect upon your psyche, much like hearing a song from your past can return you to that moment,” DeChant says, “so we have a responsibility to discover and understand how realities like these influence our clients, and what that might speak about the new home.”
PSYCHOLOGY OF LANDSCAPE
Sometimes, the environment, or site itself, calls for a specific type of home. DeChant calls it “our first psychological response,” whether it’s conscious or unconscious. One of his clients built a home on a remote lot with severe winter weather exposure. The landscape provided opportunities for amazing views, but, as DeChant describes, “we also learned that to respond to them, the home needed to reflect strength rather than delicacy, a sense of bracing against the elements, of creating shelter.” The resulting architecture: heavy timber walls and columns, with large glass windows in-between. Sometimes, only one natural element, such as a tree, dictates much of the design. Homeowners have been known to fall in love with a small clump of aspens and go to extreme lengths to show their passion by downsizing their
58
VAIL LIFESTYLE ✧ S P R I N G 2 014
dwelling. One of DeChant’s clients perceived a particular old, gnarled spruce as a “wicked tree,” which led DeChant to design a curved hallway that wrapped two-thirds around the tree; removable windows allowed the tree to stand “indoors” during the summer. “As a successful businessman who had weathered some storms, I think he might have identified with the tree,” DeChant says. In any case, blending homes with natural landscape can significantly impact how psychologically pleasing a home feels. “Fitting a structure to the land can beckon, like arms extended for an embrace, or turn you away, like folded arms of a cold dismissal,” DeChant says. “We want to occupy the home that is engaged with its site and moves with the land, that lives appropriately under the trees and offers the light of every opportunity.”
MOVING THROUGH THE WORLD
Many people think of architecture as a solid structure, in which a building expresses a particular style. However, most architects approach it as a way to present a series of events, which draw people through space. “Architecture subliminally tells
you how to move through spaces,” Webb says. “It helps you realize that movement is what governs and drives you through a space.” One project Webb worked on called for beacons, or subliminal directions, well before visitors arrived upon the home. First, a bridge with a light signaled people down a long driveway. At the end of the drive, a stone wall with a 120-foot strip light ushered guests to the front door. From there, a series of “events,” beginning with a staircase that drew people up to a grand overlook, led visitors through the home. The layout established a welcoming feeling, and its changing layers produced a sense of both expectancy and continuance. “Movement between spaces, via dynamic paths and experiences, adds dynamic to the movement, and to life,” DeChant says.
PSYCHOLOGY OF ARCHITECTURE: A WHOLE BEING
Both in an individual’s psychological makeup and in architecture, there are plenty of moving parts and pieces that ultimately fashion the whole “being.” To single out one part and say, for instance, that a vaulted ceiling translates to heightened awareness, would be to sell the psychology of architecture short. Instead, good design, which feels intuitive and natural, encompasses how each element is placed in unison and how it relates to everything else. “The building that is inspired, dynamic, fresh, creative, wellscaled and proportioned, that demonstrates sensitive, beautiful or pleasing movement, layers and colors … this building will resonate with the individual,” DeChant says. “Resonance is manifest in … yearning in absence and renewed emotions upon return. “So you see, architecture is not about the size of the room, but instead, about your response to the space.” – KIMBERLY NICOLETTI
PHOTO COURTESY RKD ARCHITECTS