Architecture & Arcadia Stephen Gerard Dietemann
Architecture and Therapy The idea for this article has been evolving for as long as i have focused my practice as an architect on residential design. i realized quite early on that residential design involved a great many of the skills that i had witnessed first hand practiced by my therapist during psychotherapy. Clients approach an architect because they need direction; they want to change their lives in some manner and they realize that changing/building their house is a critical aspect of such change. As an architect, however, i somewhat jokingly tell my clients that i am trying to, “read their minds”, when i actually mean, “understand your unexpressed desires and needs”. My goal is to create a house that truly reflects not only their way of life but their deeper yearnings as well, the need for safety or recognition for instance. i do this initially by talking with the clients (usually a couple), and asking them about their space needs and ideas of how the house should work for them. This usually includes photographs from magazines and books as well as their specific and general ideas. however, early on i also understood that one of the couple’s concept of an ideal house was sometimes not shared by the other, and that would result in many months of design struggle at the very least. To help avoid that problem i developed a questionnaire that i give each couple and ask them to answer the questions separately. After completion, they then are asked to compare answers and this usually heads off problems since basic conflicts are discovered before design starts. Of course, interpreting the results is critical and that process requires skills not taught in architecture school. The questionnaire starts off with a quote by frank lloyd
Wright that i have always felt said it all. When asked his reaction to a comment by the great european modernist architect, le Corbusier, that, “a house is a machine for living.” Wright replied, “Yes, but only to the extent that the human heart is just a pump.” in short, le Corbusier’s reductivist concept of the house was greatly insufficient in Wright’s view. Wright recognized the multi-layered nature of the house, its deeply psychological nature, both a practical hedge against the elements and a place to live, eat and sleep, but also — and perhaps even more importantly — a fortress of the unconscious. it is not by chance that dreams are so often set in a house (familiar in the dream but often unfamiliar when awake) and that a careful analysis of that house can tell a therapist a great deal about you and where you are psychologically. My own dreams have involved mansions – at some times magnificent and at other, decrepit – as well as huts, caves, and even platforms set impossibly high above the ground. Many of my short stories have been set in these dream places precisely because all fiction is a form of dream and the ‘homes’ of my dreams are as real as my ‘real’ home; they are both me. As an architect, if i can meld the ‘real’ (practical) house and the ‘dream’ (unconscious, mythic) houses, the result is a home that truly works for my clients. Given the above, i have recently wondered why the design of a house might not be an effective form of therapy in itself. An actual house is unnecessary for this process, of course. That’s good: if you thought therapy was expensive, try building a house. in any event, the therapist might start by having the client design
a house for themselves from scratch. Such a house should not reflect the house they actually reside in, but a house that manifests their life as it is lived psychologically. That house would be carefully designed, then examined and discussed. After this a ‘new house’ would be designed. This house would reflect what the client wants his or her ‘house’ to be. in essence it would indicate the distance between where the client is and where they wish to be. Maybe the new house is simply a studio, sun lit, with large expanses of glass (openness, individuality, clarity) whereas the ‘old house might’ have been a typically dark pseudo-colonial (a house of conformity and fear). Most people start therapy because they feel trapped in some way and what greater trap is there, both consciously and unconsciously, than the ‘old house’? it is a practical metaphor for what is wrong in one’s life, whereas the ‘new house’ represents the possibility of escaping that trap; a new house, a new life. Such a process could well reveal many blocks and fears that the client has placed in his or her own way, as well as the direction they really want their life to go. i hope to expand on this concept and welcome any suggestions, especially from therapists. At the very least, if an architect needs be part therapist, why shouldn’t a therapist be part architect? ~Stephen Dietemann
Simply Sasha
by Sasha Seymour
Stuffing, for the rest of us!
i love stuffing! however because i am a vegetarian, i rarely get a chance to enjoy it at family get gatherings because the stuffing is usually baked in a turkey soaking up all that turkey juice! So i decided a while back that i was going to bring my own meatless stuffing to holiday parties to share with everyone. even the die-hard meat lovers in my clan love this recipe, and i hope you will too! -1 loaf of day-old bread, torn into small pieces -1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup -1 10.5 oz can vege broth (or your own!) -1 Tbsp water -1 tsp parsley and sage -salt and pepper, to taste -1/4 cup dried cranberries -1/2 cup fresh mushrooms -1/2 cup chopped pecans Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1. Mix all the ingredients together and form into a loaf. 2. Place it in a foil lined pan and bake for about an hour in a 350 degree oven 3. Slice it like a meatloaf and serve it to your friends!
Enjoy & happy holidays!
The ArTful MinD DeCeMBer 2013 •19