Month: March 2018

Architecture Monday

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How’s this for a barn?  Complete with horses and cows and all the trappings of farm life, it’s also designed with a dual purpose in mind, allowing the hayloft serve as a community space for shows and gatherings and dinners.

I like how the off-kilter roof catches the eye and lets the barn feel taller than it really is, and how the metal trim helps emphasize the form (as though you were tracing around it with a thick line in a drawing).  I also like how it and the large window for the loft (itself pretty nifty) work off each other to balance the composition.  There’s lots of nice little touches scattered throughout, and in keeping with the theme most of them do dual duty, like the deep porch that not only welcomes as an entrance but also provides a covered spot to tend to the animals “outdoors” before bringing them in.

Cool stuff.  Save for the metal trim, this is all pretty much standard barn construction, just wood and studs, designed and constructed with precision and care.  A great reminder that all buildings, even “working buildings”, can be ones of great designs that engage and enliven and fill us with delight.

Swallowfield Barn by MOTIV Architects

Philosophy Tuesday

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In the realm of contribution, there is no such thing as a greater, or lesser, contribution.  Contribution isn’t about size, or magnitude.  It is about, and there is only, contribution.  Or not.

It’s worth recognizing this.  Because it can be all too easy to slip into the world of judgment and get hung up on assessing and rating our contribution(s).  It can be easy to see the action that makes the big difference and see things begin to shift and think “Well darn… they did that thing there and now things are altering;  I guess I wasn’t the one.”

Except that you are… you are the one of the many.  Without your contribution, that “final” tipping point that is so visible and seems so momentous may never have happened.  Every bit is a contribution, and every bit makes the next contribution possible, and every bit cements the previous contribution.  Every brick helps build the building.  Your contribution was integral to the big shift starting.

When we keep our gaze only on the capstone, when we limit our view only to that final moment, we lose sight of our power.  Why bother!?  it seems like.  My actions clearly don’t matter.  Things are intractable.  I tried but… it didn’t make a difference.  I knew it!  Might as well move on to other things and cross my fingers.

Which is, of course, the most surefire to ensure that indeed we’ll have no impact.   We will definitively not be a contribution.*

When we focus on contribution as contribution, free from magnitude, we likewise gain freedom to participate and contribute everywhere in our lives.  Opportunities open up.

And we get to aim ourselves.  There is contribution and not contribution.  Aimlessly, without care or reflection, we may be missing out on contribution, or contributing towards a direction we don’t want it to be.  It’s no contribution.  Mindfulness is still vital.

Moments of contribution are a gift.  To contribute is to get the joy and fulfillment of building something. To be contributed to is to receive love and worthiness.  And contribution can be everywhere.  Every moment, every interaction, every choice, can be a contribution.

It’s a big responsibility.  But we’re big people.  Let’s play.

 

* And it’s worth remembering that not taking action is still taking an action that still produces a result – a result that likely will be supporting the opposite of the contribution we would want to make…

Architecture Monday

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Imagine stumbling on an enigmatic “ruin” – an old cement factory with cavernous rooms, punctuated by massive supports (sometimes for things no longer there), and dotted with stairs leading to nowhere.  A child’s dream to explore… and a playground for a whimsical and very cool reinvention.  With some careful demolition and clever insertions, the old factory was transformed into offices, archives, a library, theatre, and a huge multi-function space.

I love this thing!  The whole thing is visually interesting and teasing, very fairy tale like (which is very much helped by the gothic-like tracery added to windows and around doors).  The rich texture of the rough concrete helps a bunch too, evoking the feel of natural stone that the castle was either carved in to, or otherwise built out of.  Surrounded by gardens and greenery, it really is like inhabiting a forgotten world.

And the rooms inside are a delight as well.  From the old concrete silos (round rooms! aka turrets!) to the great machine halls, everywhere the original (industrial) shapes are used to excellent effect.  Solid yet soaring, heavy yet filled with light, with smooth wood and steel contrasting with the rough natural concrete, it’s a delight for the senses.

Sorry for the million pictures  here, but there are just so many of them that catch my imagination.  I’ve gotta try and visit this place sometime.  What an amazing piece of adaptive reuse, using the bones of something gone to create something wonderful and new.

The Factory by Ricardo Bofill