A common trick in designing a house, is using your memories.
Why does this work?
Because you proved already, that your “memory” worked in the real world….
I can’t emphasize how significant, gold mine of ideas is!
Here are 5 of memories, adapted into designs.
1. The Wall of windows
I used to study in an old brick building, MBL library, in Wood Hole, MA.
It had no security of any kind, open 24 hours. It was all self-service…I’d hit the card catalogue, search the stacks, & examine of discoveries going back 100 years, ….anytime, day or night.
To get to these books, you took a creaky elevator, pulling the cage door across, then ascend…very pre-war.
Lights would be off, till you pulled your own isle string….
Food and drinks were discouraged, but a thermos of coffee in my backpack extended my reading time, till I was too tired.
I’d study along huge windows that opened up to the Sea.
So, I used this memory for my work area, having a wall of huge sash windows, right at desk height.
…the desk is smaller, but the same idea.
MEMORY:
study with window views.
design:
wall of windows by desk.
This is how style moves around a country, is transferred.
Here are more virtual and real pics of the exterior/interior.
2. memories of an old house,
front dormers
I lived in this 100-year-old house (36 Buzzards Bay, Woods Hole) for a couple years.
This massive old house hadn’t been renovated since before the war…(which War? who knows…WWI or WW2?) with knob-and-tube wiring, old plumbing, and fireplaces…
The owners just wanted someone to occupy this house in the winter, …to watch over it, so my rent was nominal, and utilities/heat were free…
It had great 2nd floor dormers, that were just the right size and scale for huge window seats, under huge double sash windows.
The entire floor “dropped-in” to the attic of the first floor, decreasing the apparent height.
These same dormers, are adapted in the send floor addition to the house below.
See how the dormer hinges from the peak of the main house, not a few feet below as carpenters shortcut now.
3. Wood ceiling
Although there were 5 bedrooms, I’d sleep up in the attic…above the front windows…where old metal military cots were stored.
The ceilings was made of raw pine boards with bark on the edges. They slanted up to a peak in the center.
At night, I’d stare at the grain and knots to imagine the trees they used to be. With a flashlight and radio, I’d go back in time and fall asleep.
It was a refuge …peaceful, dark and quiet. Such a beat-up old family home made good memories.
Again, a good memory makes a good design.
So I duplicated this, on my second floor.
4. The OUtdoor shower
the memory
Finally there are memories of an outdoor showers at a beach house.
Steam floats up in the fresh air, as you watch the stars and moon above, and the days’ work is all erased…
the copy
In the city, I couldn’t set up an outdoor shower, but I could at least make sure the showers all have large sash windows that open easily,
Then to connect with the sounds and air of outdoors, and relax as the ceiling showered let water fall, and still hear the birds and see the moon.
Surprizingly, even in multi-million-dollar houses, 95% do not have a shower window that opens to fresh air…it makes all the difference! It is so simple, a small daily joy, from beach memories.
Just for fun, a video of wild turkeys, going past our outdoor showers on morning on the Vineyard… good times.
Even Christopher Alexander
Gathering memories to design houses.
I came across an article about a house Christopher Alexander built, long ago, in Berkley, CA.
It came up for sale, so using Zillow, you can see what he did, and how he used memories of the homeowner to create it just right.
Christopher Alexander did exactly this… trolling for memories, when he designed the California house with the kitchen near a garden, as described by owners memories in France.
He also uses the collective memories of mankind, of just HUMAN NATURE, to build out his 253 rules/guides/best principles in is epic tome A PATTERN LANGUAGE.
Let your good memories fold into your new house.
Your memories are REAL, and DO matter & will feel comforting, after the build is over.