Copy other people’s houses?

Copy pictures in Houzz?

 Duplicate rooms from memories?

Yes, that is all valid…and legit.

But, eventually, you let the house design itself,

YOU get out of the way, and let it happen.

Besides, the final house should not be about YOU anyway,

It’s not about your great ideas, but how each room, wall, roof, side work with each other…

You have to Zen out, and let it fall into place.

It shouldn’t be a self-conscious, eye-popping house, but subtle, quiet, natural, kind & gentle house.

This is both terrifically hard & eventually easy….

With time, you get into the zone, and it happens.

You sneak up to it, you work small to large, function to style…just as all houses have been built for thousands of years…slowly, incrementally.

This process is not my original idea.

Human nature is not an original concept.

But KNOWING human nature….now that is something to learn, to fold into your design…

Human nature lets you know,

• it is a good feeling, to walk into a foyer with a double height ceiling.
• it is oppressive to walk into small a cinderblock school room with no windows, (or jail cell)
• that you get creeped out walking down a long thin dark hall, anywhere.
• Your soul is opened by a tall stained-glass window in a church,
• the feeling of safety along the edges of a low ceiling attic room, then expansive, as you look up as it soars to the peak…you breathe freely, safely, and calmly.

These commonalities are taught/explained, revealed in the books of Christopher Alexander.

So, when you get stuck,

when you have no opinion,

when you are just guessing,

take a break and wander thru the 253 rules, PATTERNS of Human Nature, he has already figured out over his decades of study.

Then, DRAW your own house, and actually SEE that it works, before you Build it.. Then you will not fail.