The only way to describe this concept is to imagine a day in the environment. It will have to be a 24 hour day, one with rain, fog, sunshine and moonlight. A day of reading, gardening, thinking, writing and quite dialog. Maybe an evening meal on the roof deck watching the sun go down.

Upon completion, Elsewhere will have three distinct structures - all different in time and “style” yet all integrated in their total functionality and architectural result.

The original house is an example of “Sea Ranch” [link] Idiom. This has already been modified, somewhat by the previous owner with the change of the roof material from wood shingle (a “bent plane” with the back wall) to a composite roof. The future Guest-Studio addition (there are two options, at present: [link] [link]) introduces another geometry and balance in the material mix. With the Nest (and when the Guest-Studio is built), there will be three basic geometries at play. This can be a determent or asset depending on execution. Bad if it leads to visual confusion and discontinuity; good if it provides variety and visual interest too often lost when a complex of buildings is executed at once and with one “hand.”

This will be a barn raising in the full sense of the meaning and it will integrate a number of individual artistic “gifts” from various artist friends of Gail. Both the design, as developed here, and the design/build method acts as an ARMATURE to incorporate these various individual contributions. The design creates a problem; the work that follows makes the solution.

There are three phases of this process: Phase I is design, engineering and prefabracation; Phase II is the actual erection of the structure to-move-in - a process that is expected to take 10 days; phase III is the post move-in work, final carving of the structure, landscapinging and minute adjustments.

The out of pocket cost of this project is expected to be $100,000. This was arrived at by an item-by-item costing confirmed by a volume estimate of cost of 10 dollars a cubic foot. The value will be much greater but of an indeterminate nature - at least in the short run. Other projects related to the existing house will be an additional $75,000.

Move in is targeted for mid July 2003. This is Gail’s birthday and our anniversary. This project will take priority over all other personal design projects.

As previously described, the major pieces will be prefabricated off site. The time from opening the site with foundation work to move-in will be ten days. After this there will be finish touches such as carving, staining, fine detail work and roof garden planting and so on. The prefabrication process will take, at least 90 days and will require an indoor environment. A shop set up for small wooden boat building will be adequate, however, a vertical space of 40 feet is required. Working backwards, permits will have to be filed in March; this means drawings and engineering calculations have to be completed during the first quarter of 2003. This leaves the fourth quarter of 2002 for concept drawing and the assembly of the design-build team of artist/craft-persons.

It should be clear that I hold a distinct philosophy of architecture and employ this philosophy in the creation of designs and the building processes necessary to realize them.

Philosophy is not design. It informs design and can guide the process. It is necessary to a satisfactory result. The existence of so much design talent run amuck in our work today without any philosophical guidance is testament to this observation. One can also see the converse. Situations where philosophy - good philosophy - is imposed on design. This produces dogmatic buildings. Often “correct” - but dull. The design process employs philosophy, as well as, many other disciplines and processes to make a result. Good design often challenges the very philosophy that informs it. This is one way that philosophy improves. All that said, the following is an outline of some aspects of my philosophy of architecture with emphases on those most applicable to this project.

Architecture is art as distinct from mere building. Buildings can be extraordinary (and esthetic) and still not meet this condition of art. There is nothing the matter with this. It is not feasible for every building to be high art. I am not even sure if this would make a superior environment. All of the built environment is architecture by category. Individual pieces are architecture, in my definition [link] of it, only when they take on the challenge of being art. The essence of art is that a work creates a distinct point of view - expresses a specific aspect of and way of seeing and experiencing reality. The degree of this is determined by circumstance and the intended use of the environment. There exists no hard line between well done building - which can be called Indigenousness Architecture - and ARCHITECTURE as I have defined it. One is not innately superior to the other - they are different.

It follows, then, that Art architecture pushes boundaries. This is what what art does. It leads. It challenges. This may be on the level of client and individual users, it may be on a social level. Thus, it will be uncomfortable for some. Indigenousness Architecture can be, and often is, of very high quality. It is an expression of the culture from which it comes, and by definition, within the norms of that culture. Industrial societies can produce Indigenous Architecture the same as non-industrial ones. The technology level, nor the social process/structure, per se, is not the issue.

As an example of what I am saying, it is possible to take all of Alexander’s Pattern Language and produce an environment that emerges from a “traditional” idiom that is satisfactory in every way, beautiful and comfortable. It will fit in the present social definition of what a house “should be.” It is created by the standard work processes of the society. It is “indigenousness” to that society. The same Pattern Language can be used to create a building that is far more forceful and provocative - an art piece - that may take 50 years [link] to be considered “the way a house should be.” Both can can have identical basic requirements with very similar values at their root. One fits into the present social landscape, the other creates a new social landscape. One presents an already pervasive world view, one creates (or focuses on) a new world view. Both are legitimate. Both are important. Both are distinct from careless, non-crafted junk building. Both, to be successful, have to be the right project for the right time and place and fit the true requirements of their client-users. The art architecture will be more intense, and perhaps, this is an argument for more rare. This approach to architecture is R&D, rapid prototyping and, in my view, should reach across the entire spectrum of architectural concerns: design, building processes and methods, financing means, structural and technical systems, patterns of use - and expression (metaphysics made explicit and physical).

The way that IDEA is made manifest in Architecture is by means of denotation and connotation. A thing being what it is carries a denotative message. It is a direct reference. The “honest” use of material and forms is the employment of denotative means. Fine indigenousness works rest heavily on this device.

All forms, textures, colors, rhythms provoke in humans (and at least some animals) a response. They have meaning. This connotative attribution is species specific, modified by cultural membership with further nuance provided by each individual. Connotative devices can be quite subtitle and abstract or explicit as in the use of symbol. All building and all architectures employ connotation (consciously or not) - it cannot be avoided. Music employees it as the major means for creating feeling. Expressive, or art, Architecture employees it as a deliberate and finely crafted means.

With skillful use, connotation can make a work become an “essay in stone” or “frozen music” to employ two popular sayings. It can be a textbook as are many Egyptian Temples [link] and European Cathedrals.

Ayn Rand employed denotation and connotation brilliantly in her work. Her scene, from The Fountainhead, of the young man [link] on a bicycle seeing Roark’s resort is an example of integration, on many levels, of ideas, perceptions, emotions and esthetic forms and how they can be effectively conveyed while remaining open to individual imagination.

The traditional role of the professional is one that I have long questioned. I believe the professional should focus on education and transfer and the production of leading-edge profession-defining work and less on the daily production of “boilerplate” activities well within the state-of-the-art. Once an art is canonized, a disciplined defined and transferred to broader population, it becomes the norm of a society. It becomes indigenousness. Even in a (over?) specialized society such as ours where almost every task is “outsourced" for pay, this is, at volume, mostly a “para-legal” level of professional work. When the highly trained and experienced professional focuses too much time on the trailing edge practice areas, society suffers and the professional suffers by losing interest, stimulation and challenge. The art is lost. And, in time, the skill and discipline of making it atrophies.