My Barn

Someday I will live in barn. That’s right. Chicken’s, sheep, the whole setup.  I’m serious.  I went to school in Bennington, Vermont and while I was there, I babysat for a lovely family that converted a barn into a wonderful home. The typical barn shape lends itself to expression, and at the same time has a wonderful, sheltering feeling to it.  

If you don’t know Atlanta, well, we don’t have too many barns left around these parts. Since it looks like Atlanta is for me (I really do love it here), I’ll share a few of the houses that got this idea cooking in the first place.  

The Barn House -> Belgium 

by Buro2 

Louver House -> Long Island, NY 

by LSS

ModernBarn Conversion -> Sussex 

by LCE Architects

Converted Dairy Barn -> Sussex 

by LCE Architects 

Vitra Mueum -> Germany 

by Herzong + de Meuron

Not a barn per say, but I love the lincoln log feeling.  One of the things that we try for in our work is a feeling of timelessness.  So often I come across a modern home and can tell almost to the year when it was designed.  These designs blend the old and the new so beautifully though, they create a style with no expiration date.

--Sarah

Farther Afield

Welcome to farther afield, which will be a semi-regular feature from our creative director, Honora Foah.

Difference

The qualities.  Is it rough or slippery?  Is it hot or 5 minutes exactly out of the refrigerator?  Is it blue-white, blue-grey or blue-green?  We reward and pay attention to very small differences.  The difference between an Olympic gold medalist  and the person who runs dead last is usually a fraction of a second.  Less than a second.  One is going to get sponsorship contracts and one is going home to be a used car salesman.

Attention to the qualities of a thing in tiny details or in the ability to completely rethink a whole genre leads, I think, to quality.  And also to happiness.   Some like it hot.  If you like it hot, then that is a quality of Thai food that brings pleasure and if it isn’t hot enough it’s kind of nyeh.

I think we respond to precision, to things that suit us down to the ground.  Some of those things are universal and some very individual.  The idea behind difference design is that paying attention to what makes a difference to our sense, what makes a difference to our finances and really caring about that as every single piece of a house is rethought and tweaked, will create happiness.

Here’s an example of a two micron difference that changed a city block:

and this is rethinking the whole thing and making a difference.

- Honora Foah