7 lessons I learned in
7 years of practice as an architect & builder.
☀️thread☀️
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1. Architecture & construction is a trust based business...
Architecture & construction is a trust based business so...
Every promise and handshake has its weight.
Homebuilding is intensely personal therefore very emotional business.
It is only understandable when someone trusts you with their lifetime of savings or mortgage payments.
2. Everyone underestimates costs, time & complexity.
Clients always wish for more, builders want to simplify and architects create with ambition.
95% of my builds ended up bigger, flashier and more expensive despite all efforts because the Ego is fed & Soul not nurtured.
3. We lost connection to Nature and the outside world.
We sweat to build the most high-tech, sophisticated buildings, and disregard surroundings like we're on Mars,
to be confined all the time in comfort-incubators, while we'd only need an outdoor kitchen with a chill garden.
4. Aesthetics are not subjective - they are defined by the local context.
The cheapest, most durable and beautiful home in any given place
is the one which responds the best to the challenges of the climate, the swing of the seasons and the lay of the land.
5. There is always a hidden challenge which wrecks everyone's mind. Be it a leaking winter garden, a door with wrong opening direction or a crooked step of stairs,
when it appears, tension reaches critical mass and everything blows up.
6. The XXth century created a broken system with damaging incentives and we don't have a solution yet.
Why? Because life is so radically different than 100 years ago that we can't just go back to the old ways...
We have to establish new traditions and styles of living which don't just mimick the old but embrace everything what's good about the progress of the last 100 years.
7. Enduring quality is low time preference.
Don't rush it, let the land and teach you, you will only be content with what you've created if you enjoy every decision, every minor detail and resonate fully with your surroundings.
If you read this far I'll express my gratitude with this quote:
"There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need only do inner work...that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself, he need only change himself….
The fact is, a person is so formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings."
~ Christopher Alexander
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