an early morning lot slog

We met Architect 2d and a colleague of his, the “Usonian House expert” (more on this Usonian bidness in a coming post…), to slog the lot this morning. We gawked at the air compressors (yes, they are ridiculous), the electric service, the trees, the curb cut, the solar orientation, and the view potential. We (all of us) talked about solar exposure and potential locations of the garden, garage, sound control, and house. We (my bride and I) have decided to not express a strong preference on what goes where, in part because we don’t have a strong preference on what goes where at this point, and in part because we don’t tell our doctor what’s wrong with us. I read an article about how to interact with your doctor a few years ago. A major point that stuck with me was: Don’t tell the doctor what you think your malady is; tell the doctor your symptoms and let her tell you what she thinks you have. We’re trying to apply the same thing with the architect: Share the concern (for example, garages are ugly) and let the architect come up with the solution (and if he proposes that we not have a garage, I’m going on a five-day bender…).)

Architect 2d has decided not to look at The Architect’s design until later in his design process (makes perfect sense to me). At that point he wants to see it and find out what we liked about it and then explore how those elements might be included in his design. Unexpected, but nice!

We bid the architects adieu and continued with our day.

[photo of the lot in leafier days by mwah]