The Living Building

When I visit or pass by buildings that I have worked on and that I know intimately, I am always surprised that it never looks the same when it is lived in, worked in and used. 

I have spent many hours in the creative process, contemplating and working on from inside to out and outside back in, evolving a very clean thought-out specific vision. This building has taken on another personality that is not the one I gave it. It no longer feels familiar to me. It has evolved, grown clumsy, succumbing to weariness and dinginess and I sometimes seriously question whether it is the same design.

The truth is, the Design has changed, because it is changed by the dialog between its interior and exterior use and its existence in its environment. This is the living building.  The living building is different from the design concept or the newborn building.  And maybe that is an analogy for human life. Our beauty lies in how we grow and are embraced for who and what we are and how we reflect our purpose.  The same is true for the building. When put to daily use it evolves and matures and is loved for what it is, what it means to the people it serves, and how it allows those people to live and work within it.

It is an amoeba, growing and changing with use and change of purpose, or perhaps in finding its purpose. We as humankind are the same, constantly changing and evolving and finding new purposes and faces, changing physically, emotionally and spiritually. That is the living human. Like the building, it is natural for us to evolve from our original form, our best look, our perfect mindset and become messier, a little more chaotic but just as charming.

Thus begins the Chronicles of the Inner Room, looking at how space works and our built environment evolves and impacts us and how it does and does not work for us.

How does our environment make us feel safe? How does it contribute to our well-being, our creativity, sense of community and belonging? Or why does it not contribute to all those things. This is an exploration that maybe leads to concrete ideas and may just be enough of a psychological lift to make us feel as if we are wrapped in a warm blanket.

Then again, it may all be BS. IDK.