caliwag

Struggling with this entry, are you talking about the inherent beauty in design? Or taking the time to create a design that delights?

Many have said I over think the details in our build but I’m of the view that 90% of the detail is not noticed because you’ve sweated it out. 

You only achieve elegance and purity of design with clear thought and intentions. 

Sunny? Angel? Turkish?

Mmm, I think they are all too sweet for me! Well, LGP, it does time and the result, for the curious, is delight. We should all explore examples from the memory at an early stage of brief making.  Coincidentally one of the featured examples of 'delight' was a wonderful shop front in Turkey of Coloured glass vessels from carboys, lamps with focused lighting, jugs and bottles to candle holders, in many cases full of coloured liquids and sweets, and, err, candles. I think that carefully chosen colour combinations can make a huge impact. Maybe that's the obvious starting point in achieving delight, so maybe you don't have to try too hard...it comes naturally, for some. I recall visiting friends, for a summer BBQ, in the back yard of Victorian terraced houses, and stepping out the French windows into what can only be described as a Mediterranean space, with strongly painted concrete-walled, raised-bed planting areas...and lush bushes, and this all in a yard 25 feet x 15 feet. A multi coloured sheet was the stretched strategically across to act as a sun shade, all quite delightful...the finest use of such a space, instead of somewhere to display the bins!...nor were either of the couple trained artists or designers

 

Detailing however is more of a practical issue. I don't know if you can over-work a detail: plainly you're aiming to explain to a joiner or builder what you're looking for, apart from the obvious, keeping the rain out and the heat in. Next blog aims to cover 'joinings' and details. Vital stuff. mmmmm.

Morning, Caliwag.

 

I do not like the D word.

 

My problem with "Delight" (but not the concept) is that it has become a fashionable term and a boilerplate label in passages of architectural marketing bollocks. It is not really clear it means, unless it is used of roof windows. IMO a word to be avoided in general use.

 

If I applied the word to something, it would be the folly farm tank court, or a camera obscura inside someone's house.

 

I can imagine some interior decorator asking Hilda Ogden "well, Hilda, are you delighted with the spatial narrative as you walk into your new home", and coming out with one of those rigid hotwater bottles, and a porcupine, justifiably inserted somewhere.

 

I think that RAs winter garden may eventually meet the criteria, but I hope he uses a different language.

 

We have seem the same thing with "human flourishing" ("living within an optimal range of human functioning, one that connotes goodness, generativity, growth, and resilience.) as a compound noun related to quality of life. Likely to occur in UN reports and rhetoric from Diocesan Social Responsibilty Advisers, and diversity reports, but no one has a clue what they are nebulating about.

 

Edited October 20, 2017 by Ferdinand

Haha...well I hadn't thought about it being hijacked as a fashion statement...I guess it's more personal than I thought, or perhaps more abstruse, if that's the word 

I'm Searching for. I think it can be a straightforward word to describe a beautifully crafted item, say a casting, cleverly assembled fabrication, intricate draughtsmanship or drawing, a modest garden, etc etc...I occasionally visit preserved railway centres, and recall stumbling across an original hand-operated yard crane, designed by the Midland railway in Derby...Pitch pine posts with proportional entasis, and shaped castings...all very elegant for an everyday yard crane...at no point did the designer or team say, "oh that'll have to do", well of course cast iron castings were cheap as in Victorian times, and they probably made tens of thousands of them...a delight to behold. I liked your contributions all.