LESSONS FROM THE RECENT PAST
Tidying up in the office recently, I came across a card with a pencil sketch of a house on it.
The drawing was of a Henning Hansen and Dines 1970’s house in Avonhead Road in Christchurch.
In 1978 I was earning some money, as a student, by sketching people’s houses.
The design of the house in the sketch still looks good to me some 30 years later.
I like the verandah, the good trees and planting, the well proportioned windows,
the nice mix of stained weather board and fair face concrete block, the large Japanese paper lampshade in the corner window seat.
When I did this work 30 years ago, this sketch was the ‘rough’ on site working sketch. I went home and did, what I thought at the time, a more sanitized neater version.
The owners took one look and really wanted the rough, real drawing and weren’t too interested in the clean, careful one.
They turned the rough drawing into a card and that’s why I have a record of the sketch today in 2012.
Richard Sellars Architect ☞ c o n t i n u u m architecture …why..?
After working in large architectural practices in the UK and NZ, Richard Sellars has been based in Nelson NZ for 12 years, and things are changing…
Continuum architecture has been formed to accommodate these changes
– from ‘I’ to ‘we’
– from architect to architecture art and other related activities
– to embody the qualities of simplicity, clarity, and light
– to more open-ended design thinking
– from focus on the object, to awareness of the context
– from individual effort to group collaboration
– to a more heuristic design approach
I had a dream in which I met Glen Murcutt in some buildings in North Yorkshire, the walls and vaulted ceilings were stone. We talked about the unity of materials and the c o n t i n u u m of the ancient dwellers with the present
yeah, c o n t i n u u m
FIBONACCI AND A WEDGE OF CHEESE
It’s always good to keep checking on your ideas about where and how you live. We live in a very standard New Zealand house built in 1967. The house is sited on an interesting trapezoid shaped section and borders on to a planted bank which is the property of Nelson City Council.
Every now and then I have thoughts about if we had tons of money, what would I build here. Over the years I’ve had different ideas of studios in the garden, little buildings dotted all over the site (Barbara Hepworth’s sculptural garden in St Ives, Cornwall was a major inspiration for me just before we left the UK to return home to NZ about 11 years ago) and many numerous other sketch ideas that are recorded somewhere.
Anyway, here is the latest idea. Still the garden theme but pull in a bit of Fibonacci, 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34, 55, ………etc and a wedge of cheese. The wedge of cheese is there practically to have ‘small interesting’ windows to the south east to keep the heat loss down. Recently I’ve been thinking about blending buildings into their context which can sometimes make the buildings act in an apologetic manner. This yellow cheese wedge building does the opposite and celebrates it’s difference.
It even manages to introduce some cloudy shaped windows.
All theoretical at the present but raring to go.
Having a site that is definitely under developed as far as the imagination is concerned is great. The site continually stimulates new ideas. The many different options will one day turn into something that the site itself has informed and some thing the site itself desires.
AT THE BEGINNING
When thinking or planning a new 
project there comes a time when you have to just jump in with something. A scribble, a dance, a scream anything that gets some action going or the juices flowing.
At the early stages I think it’s important not to be too finite about things. If you are too finite the imagination tends to take a back seat and the creative process fizzles out before taking hold. The mind then wanders down pretty hackneyed paths and the opportunity to create something exciting is lost. The mind heads towards what it knows which is safe and predictable.
The other method is to jump in and do something even if you don’t understand what it is you’re doing. I’ve done a set of quick drawings that are trying to catch an idea that is not fully formed yet. The drawings are vague in their overall meaning but already they have committed themselves to some clear concepts……. concepts of colour, of form and of relationship. These drawings will sit for a day or two and then there will be another burst of firing off lines and colours in as many directions as feels appropriate. This stage will lead to another and another keeping the process as free as possible. Changing media is good too. Building a cardboard model or collecting objects from around the local environment can help to trigger ideas and define what you want to do.
Keep it free early on. Don’t define yourself too early. Enjoy the play at the beginning and ban the 3d computer graphics wowee images for as long as possible.
Let your imagination be your guide not efficient predictability.
SHOWER CURTAIN HOUSE
Sunday 17 October 2010 . Showers and wind outside.
A perfect day to do a drawing of a shower curtain house with a little bit of West Coast thrown in.
ALTERATIONS
Every so often people get the need or desire to change something about the way they live. Our work space was tight and cluttered. Our drawings and printer were stored in another room and, even worse, our collection of architecture books was scattered all over the place.
We needed an alteration.
A BRIEF THAT FIRES
What is a good brief?
One that fires the imagination and gets the creative juices going. Here are two examples of two different types of brief. (1) Please mr architect design me a house which has 4 bedrooms, a study, a couple of bathrooms and my real estate agent tells me I need 2 living rooms. Or (2) Please mr architect design me a home which supports great conversation in every square inch.
Which one would you rather design to? I know which one I would.
GET YOUR DIAGRAM RIGHT
My old mate Alex, now an Asssociate Professor of Architecture somewhere in the UK, used to say to me, “Rich, get your diagram right.” It’s one of the best bits of architectural advice I’ve ever had.
The diagram is a simplified drawing showing the appearance, structure or workings of something. Diagrams are especially important at the beginning of a project because you can quickly generate and evaluate options.
The illustration adjacent begins at (a) with a simple 4 walled box. It doesn’t take much effort to produce 7 or more diagrammatic options generated from the original 4 walls. Some of the options are predictable, some are exciting, some are ridiculous and one may be just right.
The ‘best’ diagram will be the option that fits ALL the design criteria.
WHAT IS YOUR CORE BUSINESS?
14th June 2010
I am sometimes asked ʻWhat is your core business?ʼʼ and I mumble a response something like, “we design beautiful sustainable buildings which are exquisitely tailored to people’s needs”. That is a fair statement but one which youʼd hear from just about any architect living on earth today.
“Designing beautiful sustainable buildings” is a great general statement but what does it mean?
I think it means, and every architect will and should have their own meaning, having a knowledge of The State of Hum. Over recent years there has been an avalanche of information about sustainability of buildings from an energy saving perspective. This is well and good and should be encouraged in what ever way possible. As well as this very technical aspect of sustainability I think sustainability of the mind is also important, something I call The State of Hum.