In an unofficial poll amongst a group of architects on the content of this blog I was asked to show a bit of process in our work.

The problem is that while it is a great idea, in the end so much of the process that drives architectural design is filled with stillborn images and half-complete models that finding a nice way to present it in a way that makes any sense at all is a bit of a challenge.  All those fantastic animations from BIG and OMA make it seem so easy, as if they went from A to Z in a straight line (this is one of my favorites).  The reality, for us at least, is a host of zig-zagging branches that more often than not simply stop.  I have piles of sketchbooks and decrepit models to prove it.

So for the sake of our own sanity, and out of simple recognition that we don’t have the time to make the detritus of our normal messy methods into anything presentable, we instead will simplify by showing a few sketches and models and try to explain the basic concept in a bit more detail than normal.

In the meantime, I will start in the middle, with a group of sketches for the project that marked the point where we had finally worked out the main ideas of the design.  A stack of images and models came before this and after as well, but at the end the house is going to look more or less like this.

entrance to the site

kitchen and stairs to roof deck

aerial sketch used to illustrate revised structure after original version hit roadblock

The why, where, and when of the house are topics I will leave for the future.