Over many projects over many years a stonemason gets to work on some exclusive properties.
Some are more architecturally exciting than others.
Pictures tell only a thousand words of a story.
If we think many thousands of thoughts a day (estimates vary), we are adding meaning to very thing we see, and playing out inner narratives in every space we are in.
Spatial experience is more than words and pictures.
And architectural beauty is more than just how a building ‘looks’. I prefer to use Vitruvius’ descriptor for ideal aesthetics – venustas, or delight.
How a space looks, yes, but also how it inspires, makes sense, comforts, excites and carries expectation from corner to corner, room to room.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the social psychologist, pondering human experience spoke of an ideal state, the ‘flow’ that a being experiences as they move in space between the guiding parameters of boredom and anxiety.
If an experience was too boring a being sought stimulation. If too exciting, then a person will turn towards peace and solace, to stay ‘in flow’.
To enable a balanced spatial experience a designer might consider, not only parameters of timber and stone, but also the delight of flow as stimulation and solace balance out in play.
Even a man who owns a home of twenty rooms cannot live in more than one at a time.
What if that were one beautiful stone room?
