More on Process

I think I need to be more clear up front about how I work on the early stages of a project.  People expect floor plans from an architect.  That's fine, they should. But floor plans are just a part of the deal. I won't say a small part but floor plans tend to be relatively flexible.  It's easy to get them perfect.  It is much more work to get the overall form of a project correct and I tend to dive into that with ferocity early on.  This means a  lot of hours up front working on form.  After all these years of experience, the floor plan feels like an undercurrent while I work on what the new house or addition will look like and think about light and space and mood and in general, try to explore all the inherent potential in a particular approach before I trash it or put it on the shelf for further exploration and development.  This is a fairly time consuming part of the project that I think most architects don't pay enough attention to. (The ones that do eventually rise to the top)  I hate to visit a job site during framing and realize that I missed a great opportunity to capture the view in a certain way or take advantage of morning light in the kitchen in April before the leaves come out.  Or worse, visit a job site and have the client or builder point out the missed opportunity.  The goal is for someone to walk into the project when all is said and done and simply "get it" and understand that this is what it's all about.