The small-house design process has five main phases
Each of these phases is long enough for a single session. You
should complete a session, then have a rest, before you start
another session.
Session 3: Place walls, entrance, roof: the substance of the building
Steps Action Notes
Step 3aCan you imagine the main room almost entirely surrounded by a thick wall: a zone of cupboards, alcoves, niches, bookshelves, sometimes two feet deep, or even three or four feet deep?
Establish centers to form the boundary of the room.
Step 3bYou may also ask yourself what it would be like if the rest of the house (small spaces not yet defined) are also framed and formed by such thick walls. The whole house then, might be thought of as carved from solid space made of these thicknesses, and the roof raised above them to form a solid building.
Make all walls positive centers.
Step 3cTry to get clear from where you would like to enter the house, and how the entrance then flows into the main room -- perhaps directly, perhaps through a small hall.
Make entrance transition, entrance path, entrance point, interior hall, and access into the main room, each one a positive center.
Step 3dCan you now visualize the roof of the house? If you imagine that you have 70% of the house, while smaller secondary rooms still remain to be decided, you may already be able to see what form of roof would make an umbrella for the house, a true "Roof" which fits into the neighborhood, marks the house yet does not stand out in the wrong way. It can be flat, or deeply pitched. But it would be very useful at this moment to get a first picture of the character of the roof as an embracing whole, so that you may give it shape, and then imagine all the lesser rooms, nestled against the main room, and under this roof.
Make the roof a positive center.
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This completes Session 3
Back to session 2
Go to session 4
The small-house design process has five main phases
Each of these phases is long enough for a single session. You should complete a session, then have a rest, before you start another session.
Session 3: Place walls, entrance, roof: the substance of the building | ||||||||||||||
| Steps | Action | Notes | ||||||||||||
Step 3aCan you imagine the main room almost entirely surrounded by a thick wall: a zone of cupboards, alcoves, niches, bookshelves, sometimes two feet deep, or even three or four feet deep?Establish centers to form the boundary of the room.
Step 3bYou may also ask yourself what it would be like if the rest of the house (small spaces not yet defined) are also framed and formed by such thick walls. The whole house then, might be thought of as carved from solid space made of these thicknesses, and the roof raised above them to form a solid building.Make all walls positive centers.
Step 3cTry to get clear from where you would like to enter the house, and how the entrance then flows into the main room -- perhaps directly, perhaps through a small hall.Make entrance transition, entrance path, entrance point, interior hall, and access into the main room, each one a positive center.
Step 3dCan you now visualize the roof of the house? If you imagine that you have 70% of the house, while smaller secondary rooms still remain to be decided, you may already be able to see what form of roof would make an umbrella for the house, a true "Roof" which fits into the neighborhood, marks the house yet does not stand out in the wrong way. It can be flat, or deeply pitched. But it would be very useful at this moment to get a first picture of the character of the roof as an embracing whole, so that you may give it shape, and then imagine all the lesser rooms, nestled against the main room, and under this roof.Make the roof a positive center. <
| This completes Session 3 | |||||||||||||
Back to session 2 |
|