Dedication: I could not have achieved, let alone imagined, it would be possible to get to this point without the love, understanding, persistence, and patience of my client and collaborator in life, Hyun Mi Oh.
Five hundred fifty days after we broke ground, we slowly started moving into my first design-build project. Happily, my partner Hyun Mi and I celebrated Thanksgiving in the house with friends and family.
What I have learned over the last month is that the transition from designer and builder to occupant and user requires a specific psychological shift. One moves abruptly from having an abstract, intellectual relationship to a project to a more embodied and emotional tie to a building.
Usually, architects stay in their heads through the long process of making a building: from sketching, drawing, and making models to engaging subcontractors and city agencies, scheduling work, ordering materials, and issuing instructions to making corrections in the field after inspections to finally, to nervously awaiting a Certificate Occupancy.
After a project is finished, architects often face the somewhat strange psychological process of releasing a project to their clients with a degree of grace and deference. The inevitably complicated process of letting go of the work so that a client can take ownership of a property can be heartbreaking or maddening.
Some architects have a very tough time letting go of their projects.
Allegedly, Mies van der Rohe harassed the inhabitants of his Chicago residential towers, insisting they maintain his furniture layouts as he intended for the units. According to the mythology built around Mies, he went as far as to demand that occupants move their furniture away from the windows to not interfere with the phenomenologically transparent appearance he desired for his vertical glass housing.
Other architects can waste time on post-occupancy evaluations* to fine-tune their approach to their client's needs, only to have those instructions ignored later. On the other hand, I often go through a painful period of architectural postpartum once a project is finished.
After many months or years on a job site, I typically become so attached to a project and the process of working and collaborating with others so intensely that I get saddened when it is time to hand over a space or a building.
There is a real sense of loss when the thing you have worked on so passionately is no longer yours to occupy or enjoy.
So, unsurprisingly, many architects get depressed or even angry when their clients alter or damage their works through insensitive renovations or demolition.
It was rumored that Tokyo architect Masaharu Takasaki had to be temporarily committed to a mental care facility after his remarkable Crystal Light project (1983) was demolished without his consent or knowledge. But inhabiting one's architectural work presents an entirely different problem. Peter Eisenman once claimed that he would never want to design his own house because he had no interest in living inside of his own brain.
The more evident and mundane challenges of acting as a designer/client include learning that it is healthy to stop desperately looking at and continuously fixating on minutiae: tiny paint chips, minor floor deviations, slightly uneven cabinet doors, etc. The more significant challenge, however, has more to do with moving from an intellectual relationship to one's work to a more manifested, bodily relationship to a building or a space.
Architecture is a physical, emotional act that requires an embedded relationship with other human beings, not just a contractual or financial relationship.
I suspect this is challenging for many architects because, from school onwards, we are too often taught to see our discipline as autonomous or artistically independent from the messy reality of human life.
Usually, it is a badge of honor for an architect to claim to be misunderstood by a client. But that privilege is not afforded when you are the client; you must own and live with your mistakes.
So, in the spirit of accepting being a flawed, imperfect architect, what I can offer is that the invaluable experience of designing and building a project for one's family lies in what Louis Kahn claimed all architects should aspire to: "Design is not making beauty, beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, love."
CREDITS
BUILDING DESIGN | Officina Martinez Zellner: Paula Carillo, Maria Jose Cayon, Juan Ignacio Garcia, Maria Paz Laprovitta, Juan Pablo Maisonneuve and Peter Martinez Zellner.
INTERIOR & LIGHTING DESIGN | Hyun Mi Oh, Peter Martinez Zellner with Erik Runner (Color Consultant)
LANDSCAPE DESIGN | Hyun Mi Oh, Peter Martinez Zellner with Juan Pablo Maisonneuve.
CONSTRUCTION | Hyun Mi Oh & Peter Martinez Zellner with David Hernandez, Felipe Tzul and Santos Gomez and others.
MILLWORK | STAGE ONE: Gabriel Alba and Eloy Mendez
ENGINEERING | KFSE
SUSTAINABILITY | CEG
FINISH WORK | Pedro Vargas
*This involves measuring and documenting the successes and failures in a particular design effort to ensure better execution in the future.
So nice to see the house come together for you & Hyun & your family.
It was truly an honor to collaborate with such discerning & engaged clients on this personal, meaningful project.
I look forward to seeing the palette all in situ!
I've always loved your design work and I love seeing the finished project! I wish you and your family the absolute best living in this wonderful house