This project illustrates an important issue : the often divergent, if not entirely incompatible, priorities of designers with respect to builders. This client, a former MBA-ENPC colleague and accountant who had expressed, at the end of our course, how much he envied creative professionals like architects, solicited me some years later to advise him on what he could do with the tiny two-storey house he was in the process of buying for a weekend retreat outside Paris.
The design challenge was riveting, but of no interest whatsoever to the builder I solicited to tender for the building works. The fact is that builders price on quantity, whilst designers aim at nurturing qualities with whatever means available. In terms of demonstrating design ability, size is not an issue.
Clients don’t necessarily see it that way either. When they buy what they consider a bargain, spending what it takes to make the most of what they’ve got is a hard sell.
Non-professional people do not necessarily grasp that it costs a lot more, per unit cost, to fit out a small premises than generous spaces. For two mains reasons : few people can work simultaneously in constrained volumes, and secondly, whatever furnishings can be provided as standard, low-unit-cost items in ample surroundings, must be integrated in tight spaces as bespoke fixtures.
Related or parent pages :
Architectural Studies (signatory)
opus incertum 