Many years ago, during a period when I started to explore the possibility of offering my interior design experience as a commercial service, I began a process of self-examination.
Perhaps it was my AuADHD-brain, since then officially diagnosed, procrastinating on the task at hand by excavating deep rabbit holes to dive into in a bid to stave off the inevitable confrontation with my own self-doubt.
Perhaps it was a consequence of the many of competing personalities with their cacophony of voices inside me, all excited at the prospect of a creative life, competing for their point of view to be heard.
Or perhaps it was simply my process in life - a deep exploration of what lies beneath, why it was important, and how it would be harnessed to enable the best chance of successful, aligned, resilient outcomes. This I had always found to be a crucial beginning in every one of life’s journeys.
What was discovered all those years ago was a philosophical expression of what connects my interests in architecture, human behaviour, relationships, the environment and the experience of living. Rather than random competing interests among the many me’s, each was connected by an invisible, yet tangible and never-ending, thread that speaks to the meaning of SPACE.
Space is physical, and psychological, and existential. Built or embodied, it is that in which human life unfolds. In its nothingness is everything; an opportunity or a threat. It can destabilise or ground. Space can accommodate recovery or relapse, creation or destruction, love or hate. It can offer solace and anxiety, it can be our prison or our freedom.
How do we design spaces that deliver on the best of our values and intentions? How do we design spaces that create and recreate how we want to experience our world? How do we design spaces that give to us, without taking from another?
And this is where I begin. My house on the hill. My view from over the hill. The starting conceit is simple: to design a space for rest and play, built for forever with love.
From this simple premise is where the real work of exploration and discovery begin. The first steps start with questions, because good design always has to lead with inquiry. What does space mean to me in this context, on this site, at this time of my life? What does it need to do for me? How do I see “rest”? How will I play? Who rests with me? Who plays with me? How long is forever? What does this space mean for the community in which I live? When all is said and done, what will this space mean to the generations that will come after I am gone?
Here, I believe, is where we must begin.