idea for a shower

I found this on Ebay. It's too expensive (and too far away) to bid on, but wanted to make a note of it as perhaps we can build our own. It'd make a great outdoor shower, as well as a way to make sure you didn't use too much water.



It's an old (1810) portable watersaver shower. You apparently pumped water up to the top using something like an old tyre pump. Then you had your shower and the water collected in the bottom where you could pump it back up again.

inspiration from Kent & Sussex

We recently spent a few days in Kent and Sussex, visiting gardens and old houses. The weather wasn't brilliant but we were lucky most of the time - grey skies but seldom rain.

As usual, we were on the lookout for ideas we can copy at Amherst. Here's our favourites:

At Derek Jarman's garden in Dungeness we found a form of gravel garden - actually shingle - that I like. I've seen gravel gardens before but I've not liked them: this one was different though: no fences and surrounded by proper sized pebbles rather than itty-bitty stones that crunch when you walk. Given how hard it will be to maintain grass where we are, this is a godsend.


At Walmer Castle we discovered a lovely shade of blue paint that worked surprisingly well even in a sometimes dark corridor:


A cool concept for a lookout bench at Scotney Castle:


Wonderful circular steps designed by Lutyens at Great Dixter:


Raised planting troughs at Sissinghurst.... Actually I'd come across these on a past visit but seeing them again reminded me. Of course hers are all proper stone and weigh a ton but you can get fake plastic ones that look very realistic - I have to remember to get a bunch before we leave, as Mum says she's not seen them in Australia.


Also at Sissinghurst, the lovely plant gazebo from her famous white garden:


And finally, also from Sissinghurst, the herb garden. I'd love to lay our herb garden out this way in the square between the two houses (albeit without the tall hedge). I especially like the camomile bench that you can see at about 13 secs in:

architectural models

On my recent visit to the V&A museum I visited the Architecture Gallery for the first time. It wasn't as big as I thought, really just the one room:



However, what it had was delightful. Here are a few photos of my favourite models. We are *definitely* going to have to make the model of Amherst into something like this, I love them.

My favourite: inside this even had furniture!


Some others:

Wrought iron at the V&A museum

I'm a big fan of wrought iron, and so one of my favourite parts of the V&A museum is their iron gallery.

I had a chance to visit it again on Monday and this time I took pictures. :-)

It's just so beautiful, the sad thing is I expect there's hardly anyone left who has the skills to do this sort of work nowadays. If money were no object I'd have this sort of ironwork on the fences and verandah at Amherst...**ah, dreams***

idea for fire fender

idea for fire fender
Originally uploaded by lynetter

I found this on Ebay and I would have bid except it's in Sydney and so delivery to Melbourne is going to cost a fortune. A pity. But, wanted to keep a copy of it here as it's a great idea and I reckon I could easily make something similar.

I've been looking into getting fenders with seats to go with the fireplaces... they're really expensive. This could be our solution. I also like how the seats are boxes, I can see that'll be really handy for storing all the kindling/other stuff that accumulates when you have a wood fire.

plant ideas from Rushworth

While back in Australia I visited a friend who lives in Rushworth, about 2 hours drive further North from Amherst. She's restoring an old farmstead which has a lovely established garden with some really interesting plants. Here are a few that I was interested in for the Amherst garden:

First, this amazing lily... or at least I think it's a lily judging from the shape of the leaves and dead petals, but I can't tell for sure. Sam didn't know what it was either... if anyone recognises it, can you please leave a comment?


Another is this tree with great purple bell-shaped flowers. Again, we didn't know what it was precisely... thought at first a lilac but apparently the leaves aren't 'furry' which means it isn't that. Please leave a comment if you can suggest what it might be.


Finally, a peppercorn tree. This would be a lovely shade tree for the house garden plus the peppercorns would come in very handy in the kitchen too. :-)

Mum's visit to Wigandia garden

A short while ago I wrote about Wigandia garden. This is a famous Australian garden, renowned for being extremely drought tolerant, low maintenance and with its own unique style. You can see the garden's website here.

Well, thanks to the garden creator William posting a comment (thanks!) I discovered that the garden was opened to the public for the first time in years over Easter.

Unfortunately I couldn't go myself, what with being on the other side of the world, but I convinced Mum to go in my stead. It was a very long day for her, around 4 hours drive each way(!) but I think she enjoyed it, and she did an amazing job of taking photos and video.

In Mum's words:
"It was all a surprise – I had not expected it to look so good. And his sculptures would be, anywhere else, just a heap of old junk like the rusty decrepit bike thrown on a heap of sort of garden rubbish. It looked just perfect – a guy there (another visitor) and I both commented it would look like waiting for the rubbish collection in our places, but was so exactly right where he had placed it! I think it was one of the volunteers who told me he had given it a LITTLE water to make it really nice for Easter, since about Christmas. that is, probably the bathwater to cover an acre or so! "

I've put the full set of Mum's photos up on Flickr here. As well, to give you a flavour of the garden, below is a short video compilation showing one side, plus a couple of photos.


Music thanks to Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)







Based on the photos, the garden is amazing. The fact that it's so full of life, at the tail end of a long hot summer and drought, is phenomenal. Yes, I imagine it'd be prettier still in late autumn after some rain, but it's easy to make a garden look lovely when it's lush and green - what's hard is what this garden succeeds at - to look wonderful even when it's dry and overbearingly hot. It's also clearly a garden for wildlife, with the various drinking bowls for birds and all the butterflies. Just wonderful. I hope I get a chance to visit it myself in person one day.

San Francisco inspiration

In early October I was in San Francisco for a work conference. It finished on the Friday and I stayed over the weekend to visit friends.

On Sunday Caroline and I went exploring to see some of the beautiful old houses. I'd been to San Francisco several times before, but not since I got interested in architecture, so it was fun to look around with fresh eyes.

You can see all the photos I took here, but below are some that sparked particular inspiration for Amherst.

Bamboo mural on the front of a house in Haight Ashbury - something like this might be nice for a shed or verandah wall?


I loved the glossy black finish on these stairs.


And I loved the concept of training vines to grow across the risers of stairs.


I like the small verandah under the eaves of this house and can see something like this working well with the style of Amherst.


You can barely make it out in this photo, but there's some lovely old stained glass set in the trellis on the edge of the verandah. Something like this could be really great on the verandahs at Amherst, at one end to screen something off, or simply as a partial divider maybe? In particular, for the old cottage now Dad is putting the wraparound verandah on.


I loved this plant, especially how the melodrama of it so fitted with that of the house. This is a reminder to not separate planting from the architecture.


Plunging rosemary plants... I never knew they could grow like this. This might be a nice option for around the balcony edges or on terrace walls.

Hidden passageways

Hey, I just found a new thing to add to the ultimate wishlist for the house... a hidden passageway! I stumbled across this company who specialises in them, thanks to digg.

Don't panic Eric, I'm not serious. It would be kinda cool though. :-)

a different approach to reupholstery

I was really skeptical until we tried it for one of our armchairs and now I will never go back. Unless there's another reason for reupholstering besides replacing worn fabric, I recommend getting fitted covers instead of 'permanent' reupholstery.

We've had two armchairs done now, and for both you can't tell that it is removable. We got them done in a rough velvet-ey cream fabric and it's so practical to be able to take the covers off and throw in the washing machine. Once dry, you then just re-fit using the hidden zippers and velcro and voila, it's back to normal except now it's clean! It's a hell of a lot easier than steam cleaning.

The place we've used so far is called Plumbs Covers. Their brochures can be a pretty tacky looking and any of the special offers only applies to horrible chintzy polyester fabrics. But, they have a big range and provided you're willing to pay for the custom-made service and pick a decent fabric, it's brilliant. It worked out for us about the same price as permanent reupholstering would have, so it wasn't about saving money, but it is more practical. The best thing about it now is that they've just introduced a worldwide mailorder service. So, you just need to take the measurements yourself and send photos of the sofas / chairs you want covered and they'll make it to order.

Aberdeenshire inspiration

We’ve just got back from 4 days in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, spent mostly visiting castles and gardens albeit in somewhat drizzly weather. As is usual whenever we travel now, we came back armed magpie-like with ideas for Amherst! You can see the full set of photos here but these are the main ideas:

For the garden:

My favourite of the gardens we visited was at Leith Hall, as it was the most ‘English’ of the lot with a huge zigzagging herbaceous border and lots of flowers and specimen trees. Ideas it sparked included:

Gates that shut themselves by means of a heavy stone weight tied to them


Having a circular gateway like their moongate. Not sure how hard it would be to make, but in the right spot it could be really effective.


Mowing the grass to make a pattern. I’ve seen this done before to create walkways, but never as effectively to create a decorative pattern.



A close second to Leith Hall of my favourite gardens was at Crathes Castle. It was the first we visited on this trip. Ideas we got from it:

Lupins lupins lupins. They were everywhere in full bloom, especially in the garden at Crathes Castle which had an entire border full of them. They really looked spectacular. I’m going to give them another chance in our London garden, plus put them on the list for the ‘cossetted’ secret garden area at Amherst.


Square rope like netting stretched between stakes all along the herbaceous border was used at almost all the gardens we visited, but we saw it most at Crathes. I’d not seen it before, I guess because we’d not visited early enough in the season before the plants had grown. It was put about thigh height and the plants just grew up through it so that it provided them with support and held the flower stalks up straight. A very clever idea I shall definitely borrow, a lot easier than attempting to stake individual plants.


Gravelled paths but letting the edges go a bit wild so that succulents and little creepers can spread in the margins


Garden gates made of curved metal strips. I love cast iron gates but as I don’t know any friendly blacksmiths I figure we won’t be able to ever afford them. But, perhaps we will be able to find some readymade curved metal strips which by judicious weaving and screwing together, and black paint, we could get this effect.


Dave found a lovely creeper which has pink and white mottled leaves as well as green. It is called actinidia kolomikta.



The only non-castle-attached garden we visited was Pitmedden Garden. I learned once and for all that I do not much like parterre style beds and elaborate planting out schemes. Which is good as I’ve now spared myself a trip to Versailles! But we did see some things we liked there, including:

Apples and other fruit espaliered not against a wall, but along and over a curved arch walkway, like you would more commonly see with roses.


Double rows of limes (or linden trees as Dave prefers to call them) planted close enough and pruned to create a walkway.


Carefully chosen sculpture can really enhance a garden – we both loved the lifesize boxing hares on the main lawn.



Drum Castle was the last of the castles we visited, and we spent a lot of time in the garden as we got there too early! Most of the things we'd seen elsewhere though, so although it was lovely we didn't get any new ideas. The sole exception was that there was a spectacular tree, called davidia involucrata... aka the pocket handkerchief tree!



For the house:

There weren’t as many ideas as you might expect considering we visited 5 houses, but with only one exception they were all very different to the usual style of place we visit. They were mostly castles, and Scottish style castles at that, which tended to have a lot of narrow towers with lots of winding stone steps. We visited in order, Crathes castle, Haddo House, Leith Hall (like a mini-castle), Craigievar castle and Drum castle.

Some of the ideas:

The importance of rugs. You can never have enough rugs it seems, and if you can’t get giant ones that cover a room, then just get 3 or 4 and scatter them around. They don’t even need to match to look good provided they’re all of similar style, and they look even nicer when they’re worn. So I’m on the lookout for old rugs, I wonder where you get them from?

Tapestry seats on chairs. I might even experiment with re-upholstering the new dining chairs with tapestry seats, if I can find some ready-done tapestry. I’ve seen it come up on Ebay occasionally. I just don’t have the patience to do the lot myself!

Little flaps, about the width of a bookmark but lying perpendicular to the book, hanging from the top of each shelf in a library. It stops the dust getting onto the books in the shelf below. Dave reckoned we could do it using Velcro to hold the strips on and then just have a piece of wood that sits over the top to give the illusion of a straight edge. When it got dusty you could just peel the Velcro off and wash them.

Dave is keen on the idea of having a ‘Great Hall’, aka a long room with barrel vaulted ceiling. We talked about maybe having the library at Amherst in this style. I was also wondering about putting the giant stained glass lamp in there, with a skylight above it, but would have to try it out in SketchUp to test it didn’t disrupt the symmetry.

Rather than having a chair that converts to a 2-step stepladder, have instead a longer bench or stool that converts to a 4-step stepladder.

the radiator is on sale

A year ago I wrote about this incredible radiator I'd found.



This week I got an email from Joris to say an electric version is now on sale to consumers, with a central heating version coming soon too. If you're interested in it, you can contact joris via email. The only bad thing about it is the price.

Now, you have to not think of it as a radiator.
You have to think of it as a work of art.
A work of art that was bought by several design museums and won lots of awards.


Take a deep breath.


The price is 3,950 Euros. That's around US$5000.

To put it into perspective. That's the price of a week long holiday for two somewhere nice in the Maldives or Caribbean. Or, in Amherst terms, about the same price as the sewage treatment system is likely to cost.

I'm in sticker shock. So is Dave. It is a magnificent thing, something to treasure, both functional and beautiful. I just wish it was cheaper.

Idea: doors with windows that open

This old door was for sale on Ebay. We're not going to buy it as they want way too much money for it, but I really like the style of having a section with opening windows. Maybe we will repurpose some other doors to get the same effect.

apply patterns (3): Garden

These patterns are my favourites from the book "Pattern Language", as described in my previous post. In this post I look at the ones relating to garden layout and those spaces which are bridges between house and garden.


#105: South facing outdoors
People use open space if it is sunny, and don't use it if it isn't, in all but desert climes. Therefore:
Always place buildings to the north of the
outdoor spaces that go with them, and keep the
outdoor spaces to the south. Never leave a deep
band of shade between the building and the sunny
part of the outdoors.


As Pattern Language was written in the US, I presume in Australia we'd need to reverse 'north' and 'south', but the basic principles still apply. I guess we will find out when Eric does the "sun test" whether this will be an issue, but I can't see how it will be. There may be some areas of deep shade in the vicinity of the house in the secret garden area, especially when trees grow, but in the height of an Australian summer frankly you need shade.


#106: Positive outdoor space
Outdoor spaces which are merely leftover between buildings will, in general, not be used. Therefore:
Make all the outdoor spaces which surround and
lie between your buildings positive. (which seems
to mean: give it a distinct shape, as definitely
as a room, and make its shape as important as the
shapes of the buildings that surround it, but don't
make it too enclosed). Give each one some degree
of enclosure; surround each space with wings of
buildings, trees, hedges, fences, arcades, and
trellised walks, until it becomes an entity with
a positive quality and does not spill out
indefinitely around corners.



#114: Hierarchy of Open Space
Outdoors, people always try to find a spot where they can have their backs protected, looking out torward some larger opening, beyond the space immediately in front of them. Therefore:
Whatever space you are shaping, make sure of
two things. First, make at least one smaller space,
which looks into it and forms a natural back for it.
Second, place it, and its openings, so that it
looks into at least one larger space. When you
have done this, every outdoor space will have a
natural back; and every person who takes up the
natural position, with his back to this back ,
will be looking out toward some larger distant view





#115: Courtyards which live
Courtyards intended to be private open spaces often end up unused, full of gravel and abstract sculptures. Most common reasons courtyards fail are because there is too little ambiguity between indoors & outdoors, so the transition is too abrupt; because there are not enough doors into the courtyard, so no-one ever passes through; or simply becuase they are TOO enclosed. Therefore:
Place every courtyard in such a way that there is
a view out of it to some larger open space; place it
so that at least 2 or 3 doors open from the building
into it and so that the natural paths which connect
these doors pass across the courtyard. And, at one
edge, beside a door, make a roofed verandah or a
porch, which it continuous with both the inside
and the courtyard.



#120: Paths and Goals
The layout of paths will seem right and comfortable only when it is compatible with the process of walking. And the process of walking is far more subtle than one might imagine. As you walk along you scan the landscape for intermediate destinations and try (more or less) to walk in a straight line toward these points, wiht the effect that you often 'cut corners'. These intermediate destinations, however, keep changing becuase the further you walk the different your vantage point, the more you can see round a corner. Therefore:
To lay out paths, first place goals at natural
points of interest. Then connect the goals to one
another to form the paths. The paths may be straight
or gently curving between goals; their paving should
swell around the goal. The goals should never be
more than a few hundred feet apart.





#163: Outdoor room
A garden is the place for lying in the grass, swinging croquet, growing flowers, throwing a ball for the door. But there is another way of being outdoors: and its needs are not met by the garden at all. For some moods, some times of day, some kinds of friendship, people need a place to eat, to sit in formal clothes, to drink to take together, to be still, and yet outdoors. They need an outdoor room, literally - a partly enclosed space, outdoors, but enough like a rooms that people behave in it as they do in rooms, but with the added beauties of the sun, wind, smells, rustling leaves. Therefore:
Build a place outdoors which has so much enclosure
around it that it it takes on the feeling of a room,
even though it is open to the sky. To do this,
define it at the corners with columns, perhaps roof
it partially with a trellis or a sliding canvas roof,
and create 'walls' around it with fences, sitting
walls, screens, hedges or the exterior walls of
the building itself.



#167: Six foot balcony
Balconies and porches which are less than six feet deep are hardly ever used. Therefore:
Whenever you build a balcony or porch, always make
it at least 6 feet deep. If possible, to give it an
added feeling of security, recess at least a part of
it into the building so that it is not cantilevered
out and separated from the building by a simple line,
and enclose it partially - eg: with a low wall or
heavy columns. In terms of space, treat it as an
outdoor room



#168: Connection to the earth
A house feels isolated from the nature around it unless its floors are interleaved directly with the earth that is around the house. You want a house to feel rooted as if it belongs where it is placed. Therefore:
Build a series of paths and terraces and steps
around the edge of the building. Place them deliberately
to make the boundary ambiguous, so that it is impossible
to say exactly where the building stops.





#174: Trellised walk
Trellised walks have their own special beauty. They are so unique, so different from other ways of shapng a path, that they are almost archetypal. Therefore:
Where paths need special protection or where they
need some intimacy, build a trellis over the path and
plant it with climbing flowers. Use the trellis to
help shape the outdoor spaces on either side of it.



#238: Filtered light
Light filtered through leaves or tracery, is wonderful. This is because direct light casts strong shadows resulting in harsh images, and also because filtering reduces glare. Therefore:
Where the edge of a window or the overhanging eave
of a roof is silhouetted against the sky, make a rich,
detailed tapestry of light and dark to break up the
light and soften it. You can do this, most easily,
with climbing plants trained to climb around the
outside of the window. If there are no plants you
can also do it beautifully with simple canvas awnings.



#243: Sitting wall
In many places walls and fences between outdoor spaces are too high; but no boundary at all does injustice to the subtlety of the divisions between the spaces. Therefore:
Surround any natural outdoor area, and make minor
boundaries between outdoor areas with low walls, about
16 inches high, and wide enough to sit on, at least 12
inches wide. Place the walls to coincide with natural
seat spots, so that extra benches are not necessary.

applying patterns (2): Interior

These patterns are my favourites from the book "Pattern Language", as described in my previous post. In this post I look at the ones relating to the details of the interior, such as how furniture is laid out, window heights, etc.



#134: Zen View
There is a problem with any beautiful view. You want to enjoy it every day, but the more open and obvious it is, the more it shouts, the sooner it will fade. Gradually it will become part of the building, like the wallpaper, and the intensity of its beauty will no longer be accessible to the people who live there. Therefore:
If there is a beautiful view, don't spoil it by building huge
windows that gape incessantly at it. Instead, put the windows which
look onto the view at places of transition - along paths, in hallways,
in entry ways, on stairs, between rooms. If the view window is
correctly placed, people will see a glimpse of the distant view as
they come up to the window or pass it, but the view is never visible
from the places where people stay.


I'm not sure I fully subscribe to this theory, because it presumes that the view is never changing, whereas in fact it differs all the time with the variation in weather, plants, etc. But, I think a view is a bit like chocolate... if you have too much you start to take it for granted and not enjoy it like you would if you kept it as a treat. I don't want to have floor to ceiling huge expanses of glass everywhere to 'bring in the view' like so many modern houses seem to, and our plans for Amherst don't.


#135: Tapestry of light and dark
In a building with uniform light level, there are few places which function as effective settings for human events. This happens because, to a large extent, the places which make effective settings are defined by light. Therefore:
Create alternating areas of light and dark throughout the
building, in such a way that people naturally walk toward the
light, whenever they are going to important places: seats,
entrances, stairs, passages, places of special beauty, and
make other areas darker to increase the contrast.


Hmmm... I think this will happen naturally, especially if we use a variety of lights, wall lights, table lamps etc, and of course have dimmer switches everywhere. (That was the best thing I did here in London was to put dimmer switches in almost every room, it made such a difference to the atmosphere). I guess that when we eventually get to the stage of designing in for lighting, wall colours, etc we'll have to think more carefully about this.


#139: Farmhouse kitchen
The isolated kitchen, separate from the family and considered as a factory for food is a hangover from the days of servants. A much better model for modern living is the farmhouse kitchen. Therefore:
Make the kitchen big enough to include the 'family room' space,
and place it near the center of the commons, not so far back in the
house as an ordinary kitchen. Make it large enough to hold a good
big table and chairs, some soft and some hard, wth counters and stove
and sink around the edge of the room; and make it a bright and
comfortable space.


Yes, this is what we aspire to have in our kitchen area, although it will still be a separate area so that you can shut off the mess if you want.



#179: Alcoves
To give a group of people a chance to be together, as a group, a room must also give them the chance to be alone, in one's and two's in the same place. This is particular true for places like the kitchen and the living room, where if there are not these areas then people who are doing one thing (eg: reading) will be disturbed by people doing something else, and thus be less likely to spend time together. Therefore:
Make small places at the edge of any common room, usually
no more than 6 feet wide and 3 to 6 feet deep and possible
much smaller. These alcoves should be large enough for 2
people to sit, chat or play, and sometimes large enough to
contain a desk or a table. Give the alcove a ceiling which
is markedly lower in height than the main room, and consider
making a partial boundary using low walls and thick columns.


I really like the idea of having alcoves. This is going to be the biggest challenge to design in I suspect. I especially like the idea of varying the ceiling height... perhaps we could even have drawers high up in the extra ceiling space that's been enclosed for storage?


#180: Window place
Everybody loves window seats, bay windows and big windows with low sills and comfortable chairs drawn up to them. These kinds of windows create 'places', and a room which does not have such places seldom allows you to feel fully at ease because you will always remain slightly torn between being drawn to the light and drawn to sit down. Therefore:
In every room where you spend any length of time during
the day, make at least one window into a window place.
Make it low and self-contained if there is room for it
(eg: alcove); under sloping roofs use dormer windows.
Window seats built into niches are a good way to execute
this in a small space. Low sills should be very low -
12 to 14 inches - and the armchair nearby should give
a sense of enclosure, eg with tall back and sides.


Yes, window seats are a definite must. I like the idea of having low sills too.


#182: Eating atmosphere
Some rooms invite people to eat leisurely and comfortably and feel together, while others force people to eat as quickly as possible so they can go somewhere else to relax. Therefore:
Put a heavy table in the centre of the eating space -
large enough for the group of people using it. Put a
light over the tapbel to create a pool of light over
the group, and enclose the space with walls or with
contrasting darkness. Make the space large enough so
the chairs can be pulled back comfortably, and provide
shelves and counters close at hand for things related
to the meal.



#184: Cooking layout
Cooking is uncomfortable if the kitchen counter is too short and also if it is too long. Therefore:
To strick the balance between the kitchen being too
small and too spread out, place the stove, sink and food
storage and counter in such a way that 1) No two of the
four are more than 10 feet apart. 2) the total length
of the counter - excluding sink, stove and refrigerator -
is at least 12 feet. 3) No one section of the counter
is less than 4 feet long.



#185: Sitting circle
A group of chairs, a sofa and a chair, a pile of cushions - these are the most obvious things - and yet to make them work, so people become animated and alive in them is a very subtle business. Most seating arrangements are sterile, people avoid them, nothing ever happens there. Others seem somehow to gather life aroudn them to concentrate and liberate energy. The most important difference between them is their position, shape and informality. To get the best arrangement:
Place each sitting space in a position which is protected,
not cut by paths or movement, roughly circular, made so that
the room itself helps to suggest the circle - not too strongly
- with paths and activities around it so that people naturally
gravitate toward the chairs when they get into the mood to
sit. Place the chairs and cushions loosely in the circule
and have a few too many.






#188: Bed alcove
Bedrooms make no sense because the valuable space around the bed is used for nothing except access to the bed. Therefore:
Don't put single beds in empty rooms called bedrooms.
Instead put individual bed alcoves off rooms with other
nonsleeping functions, so the bed itself becomes a tiny
private haven. This is a particular useful way to get
extra sleeping spaces without making the house grow
much larger.



#189: Dressing rooms
Dressing and undressing, storing clothes, having clothes lying around, have no reason to be part of any larger complex of activities. Indeed they disturb other activities: they are so self contained that they themselves need concentrated space which has no other function. Therefore:
Give everyone a dressing room between their bed and
the bathing room. Make it big enough so there is an
open area in it at least 6 feet in diameter; a mixture
of hanging space, open shelves and drawers, and a mirror.
Place it so it gets plenty of natural light, ideally
light on two sides.



#190: Ceiling height variety
A building in which the ceiling heights are all the same is virtually incapable of making people comfortable. Therefore:
Vary the ceiling heights continuously thorugh the
building, especially between rooms which open into
each other, so that the relative intimacy of different
spaces can be felt. In particular, make ceilings high
in rooms which are public or meant for large gatherings
(10 to 12 feet), lower in rooms for smaller gatherings
(7 to 9 feet) and very low in rooms or alcoves for one
to two people (6 to 7 feet). Where ceiling height varies
within one storey, put storage in the spaces between the
different heights, and vary ceiling heights from storey
to storey, with the highest ceilings on the ground floor.



#193: Half open wall
Rooms which are too closed prevent thenatural flow of social occasions, and thenatural process of transition from one social moment to another. And rooms which are too open will not support the differentiation of events which social life requires. Therefore:
Adjust the walls, opening and windows in each indoor
space until you reach the right balance between open,
flowing space and closed cell-like space. Do not take
it or granted that each space is a room; nor, on the
other hand, that all spaces must flow into each other.
The right balance will always lie between these extremes:
no one room entirely enclosed; and no space totally
connected to another. Use combinations of columns,
half-open walls, porches, indoor windows, sliding
doors, low sills, frenchdoors, sitting walls, and so
on, to hit the right balance.



#194: Interior windows
Windows are most often used to create connections between the indoor and the outdoors. But there are many cases when an indoor space needs a connecting window to another indoor space besides the obvious (corridors, small rooms that would otherwise feel like prisons). In particular:
Put in fully glazed fixed windonws betwen rooms which
tend to be dead because they have too little action in
them or where inside rooms are unusually dark.



#196: Corner doors
The success of a room depends to a great extent on the position of the doors. If the doors create a pattern of movement which destroys the places in the room, the room will never allow people to be comfortable. Therefore:
Except in very large rooms, a door only rarely makes
sense in the middle of a wall. It does in an entrance
room,for instance, because this room gets its character
essentially from the door. But inmost rooms, especially
small ones, put the doors as near the corners of the
room as possible. If the room has two doors, and people
move through it, keep both doors at one end of the room.



#199: Sunny counter
Dark gloomy kitchens are depressing. The kitchen needs the sun more than the other rooms, not less. Therefore:
Place the main part of the kitchen counter on the
south and southeast side of the kitchen, with big windows
around it, so that sun can flood in and fill the kitchen
with yellow light both morning and afternoon.



#200: Open shelves
Cupboards that are too deep waste valuable space, and it always seems that what you want is behind something else. Therefore:
Cover the walls with narrow shelves of varying depth
but always shallow enough so that things can be placed
on them one deep - nothing hiding behind anything else.



#210: Waist-high shelf
In every house and every workplace there is a daily 'traffic' of the objects which are handled most. Unless such things are immediately at hant, the flow of life is awkward, full of mistakes, things are forgotten, misplaced. Therefore:
Build waist-high shelves around at least a part of
the main rooms hwere people live and work. make them
long,9 to 15 inches deep, with shelves or cupbard
underneath. Interrupt the shelf for seats, windows
and doors.



#202: Built-in seats
Built-in seats are great. Everybody loves them. They make a building feel comfortable and luxurious. But most often they do not actually work. They are placed wrong, or too narrow, or the back does not slope, or the view is wrong, or the seat is too hard. To make a built-in seat that really works:
Before you build the seat, get hold of an old armchair
or a sofa and put it into the pusotion where you intend
to build a seat. Move it until you really like it.
Leave it there for a few days. See if you enjoy sitting
in it. Move it if you don't. When you have got it into
a position which you like, and where you often find
yourself sitting, you know it is a good position. Now
build a seat that is just as wide adn just as well
padded - and your built in seat will work.



#221: Natural doors and windows
Finding the right position for a window or a door is a subtle matter. But there are very few ways of building which take this into consideration. The delicacy of placing a window or a door has nearly vanished, but it is just this refinement, sometimes down to the last inch or two, which makes an immense difference. Therefore:
On no account use standard doors or windows. Make
each window a differen size, according to its place.
Do not fix the exact position or size of the door and
window frames until the rough framing of the room has
actually been built, and you can really stand inside
the room and judge, by eye, exactly where you want to
put them , and how big you want them. Make the windows
smaller and smaller, as you go higher in the building.



#222: Low sill
One of a window's most important functions is to put you in touch with the outdoors. If the sill is too high, it cuts you off. Therefore:
When determing exact location of windows also decide
which windows should have low sills. On the first floor,
make the sills of windows which you plan to sit by
between 12 and 14 inches high. ON the upper stories
make them higher, around 20 inches.





#223: Deep reveals
Windows with a sharp edge where the frame meeting the wall create harch, blinding glar, and make the rooms they serve uncomfortable. They have the same effect as the bright headlines of an oncoming car: the glare prevents fyou from seeing anything else on the road. To solve this:
Make the window frame a deep, splayed edge: about a foot
wide and splayed at about 50 to 60 degrees to the plane of
the window, so that the gentle gradient of daylight gives
a smooth transition between the light of the window and
the dark of the inner wall.



#235: Soft inside walls
A wall which is too hard or too cold or too solid is unpleasant to touch; it makes decoration impossible and creates hollow echoes. Therefore:
Make every inside surface warm to the touch, soft enough
to take small nails and tacks, and with a certain slight
"give" to the touch. A very good material is soft white
gypsum plaster, it is warm in colour, warm to the touch,
soft enough to take tacks, easy to repair and makes a
mellow sound. Whereas cement plaster, though only slightly
different in makeup is opposite in all of these respects.
Wood is also good (if you can afford it!)



#236: Windows which open wide
Many building nowadays have no opening windows at all, and manyof the opening windows that people do build don't do the job that opnening windows ought to do - ie: fully open! Therefore:
Decide which of the windows will be opening windows.
Pick those which are easy to get to, and choose the
ones which open onto flowers wyou want to smell, paths
where you might want to talk, and natural breezes.
Then put in side-hung casements that open outward.
Here and there, go all the way and build full French
windows



#237: Solid doors with glass
An opaque door makes sense in a vast house or palace, where every room is large enough to be a world unto itself; but in a small building, with small rooms, the opaque door is only very rarely useful. Therefore:
As often as possible, build doors with glazing in
them so that the upper half at least allows you to see
through them. At the same time, build the doors solid
enough, so that they give acoustic isolation and make
a comfortable 'thunk' when they are closed.



#251: Different chairs
People are different sizes, they sit in different ways. And yet there is a tendency in modern times to make all chairs alike. A better approach is:
Never furnish any place with chairs that are
identically the same. Choose a variety of different
chairs, some big, some small, some softerthan others,
some rockers, some very old, some new, with arms,
without arms, some wicker, some wood, some cloth.



#252: Pools of light
Uniform illumination serves nouseful purpose whatsoever. In fact, it destroys the social nature of space and makes people feel disoriented and unbounded. Instead:
Place the lights low, and apart, to form individual
pools of light which encompass chairs and table like
bubble to reinforce the social character of the spaces
which they form. Remember that you can't have pools
of light without the darker places in between.

applying patterns (1): House shape

These patterns are my favourites from the book "Pattern Language", as described in my previous post. In this post I look at the ones relating to the overall shape of a house, and check out how our current plans for the new house measure up.


#107: Wings of Light
Buildings which displace natural light as the major source of illumination are not fit places to spend the day. Therefore:
Arrange each building into wings... make each wing long and
as narrow as you can, never more than 25 ft wide. Use the wings
to form "positive outdoor spaces"


After some measuring up on the latest set of plans, I think we fall within this limit pretty much if you count it as having 3 wings - two either side of building and one jutting out for the library. The library and also the screened porch that sticks out from the main building also help to frame the 'secret garden' area behind the house so that's good too.


#127: Intimacy gradient
Unless the spaces in a building are arranged in a sequence which corresponds to their degrees of privateness, the visits made by strangers, friends, guests will always be a little awkward. Therefore:
Lay out the spaces of a building so that they create a sequence
which begins with the entrance and the most public parts of the
building, then leads into the slightly more private areas, and
finally to the most private domains.


If you start at the main entrance, then it works OK. The only thing that potentially jars is having the downstairs toilet in the mudroom area. We're still working on the precise layout for this, the latest is here. I think provided we can get it so that the mudroom part can be closed off without making the toilet feel stingy and cramped, it'll work. I like how the library is off in it's own area. This will let it be both a place for quietness (reading, sleeping) and for partying, around the mid-sized billiards table, which Dave is eying up putting here ... I think this could be cool provided that it has a cover so can be a normal table at other times.


#128: Indoor sunlight
Very few things have as great an effect on the feeling of a home as the sun shining into it. If the right rooms are facing south, a hosue is bright and sunny and cheerful; if the wrong rooms are facing south, the house is dark and gloomy. Therefore:
Place the most important rooms along the south edge of the
building and spread the building out along the east-west axis.
Fine tune the arrangement so that the proper rooms are exposed
to the south-east and the south-west sun. E.g., give the
common area a full southern exposure, bedrooms south east,
porch south-west.




As this was written for the US I presume in Australia we'd need to reverse 'north' and 'south', but the concept is still relevant and our plan works. We have the breakfast area, kitchen, and main bedroom where the morning sun comes, and the lounge and library at the evening side.


#130: Entrance room
Arriving in a building, or leaving it, you need a room to pass through, both inside the building and outside it. This is the entrance room. Not only is this for practicalities such as providing a place to put things while you fumble with keys, or to shelter from the weather, it's also for psychological reasons - eg: to provide a symbolic marker for saying final goodbyes when guests are leaving. Therefore:
At the main entrance to the building, make a light-filled
room which marks the entrance and straddles the boundary
between indoors and outdoors. The outside part may be like
an old fashioned porch; the inside like a hall or sitting room.
Provide seating areas either side, with the indoor seating
part of a sequence of sitting spaces.


Yes yes yes! This puts into words why I like entrance rooms, and generous ones at that, not just at one end of a passage. With the addition of the seating nook, I think ours will feel nice. I'm rethinking though using that lovely door that Dad found as the front door, because it doesn't have any glass in it. I know we could cut out some of the panels and insert it, but that'd be such a shame. Maybe instead this chould be a door to the Library or something, hmmm. Alternatively, perhaps we use the solid door still, but have glass panes either side in the wall? That might work really well, although obviously it means the entrance area has to be wide enough to fit it (but that's no bad thing)


#131: The flow through rooms
The movement between rooms is as important as the rooms themselves; and its arrangement has as much effect on social interaction in the rooms, as the interiors of the rooms. Therefore:
As far as possible, avoid the use of corridors and passages.
Instead use public rooms as rooms for movement and for gathering.
To do this, place the common rooms to form a chain, so it becomes
possible to walk from room to room, and so that private rooms
open directly off these public rooms. In every case, give this
indoor circulation from room to room a feeling of great
generosity, passing in a wide and ample loop around the
house, with views of fires and great windows.


We're on the way to accomplishing this I think, at least in terms of flow. The exception is the library area, but that's deliberately meant to feel separate. Ditto the screened porch area as that's a kind of outdoor garden room as much as an inside space. We even have a loop if you consider throwing open the porch doors between kitchen & lounge.


#132: Short passages
Long sterile corridors set the scene for everything bad about modern architecture. Therefore:
Keep passages short. Make them as much like rooms as
possible, with carpets or wood on the floor, furniture (eg:
seats in alcoves), bookshelves, beautiful windows. Make
them generous in shape and always give them plenty of light.
The best corridors of all are those which have windows
along an entire wall.


Yes. The only corridor we have, really, is the small one going to the library. I'm seeing that this will definitely have windows all the way along looking onto the secret garden and probably waist high shelves too below it. (No point having full length windows as there'll be stuff on the verandah and who wants to look at the back of chairs?)


#133: Staircase as a stage
A staircase is not just a way of getting from one floor to another. The stair is itself a space, a volume, a part of the building; and unless this space is made to live, it will be a dead spot, and work to disconnect the building and to tear its processes apart. Therefore:
Place the main stair in a key position, central and visible.
Treat the whole staircase as a room (or if it is outside, as a
courtyard). Arrange it so that the stair and the room are one,
with the stair coming down around one or two walls of the room.
Flare out the bottom of the stair with open windows or
balustrades and with wide steps so that the people coming
down the stair become part of the action in the room while
they are on the stair, and so that people below will naturally
use the stair for seats.




I really like this concept and I think we could definitely achieve it in the "living hall" area, we just need to carefully design the bottom part of the stairs. Maybe the first few steps has a kind of arc'ed area like in this picture? I like the feel of it. It can get a bit more formal further up when the bannister starts. Also, I think we should give careful thought about having shelving as you go up the stairs for books, ornaments, etc, as well as space for hanging pictures. Perhaps the area midway up, where you turn, is quite wide, almost like a teensy room, with space for a chair, some book shelves, and of course the windows looking out over the view? This would also let us have more 'under stair storage' which is always a great thing to have... and perhaps help the "living hall" feel not quite so cavernous?


#138: Sleeping to the East
As humans, we are sensitive to natural rhythyms and cycles. The best time to wake up after sleeping is at the end of REM sleep (ie: just after a dream), as you'll feel much more energetic than if you awaken at other times. But, the only way to make sure you wake up at this best time is to be woken by the sun. The sun warms and nudges you awake so gently that you will wake at the best point, unlike an alarm that jerks you awake no matter what your dreamstate. Therefore:
Give those parts of the house where people sleep an eastern
orientation, so that they wake up with the sun and light. This
means typically that the sleeping area nees to be on the eastern
side of the house, although it can also be on the western side
provided there is a courtyard or a terrace to the east of it.
Position the bed so that you can see the sunlight from it,
but it isn't shining directly onto the bed itself or else
you'll get too hot.


I think we're OK on this, as the master bedroom is at the right side of the house to allow this.


#145: Bulk storage
There is always some need for bulk storage space; a place for things like suitcases, old furniture, old files, boxes - all those things which you are not ready to throw away, and yet not using everyday. Very often the need for this kind of storage space is neglected, meaning that some other part of the house is sacrificed to this function. Therefore:
Do not leave bulk storage till last or forget it. Include
a volume for bulk storage in the building - its floor area at
least 15-20% of the whole building area, not less. Place this
storage somewhere in the building that costs less because it
doesn't need a finish. It could be in the roof, if you have a
steep roof, or in the basement if building on a sloping site;
it could even be in a separate shed.


Inside the house we are definitely lacking in this at the moment. I think making the stair landing area wider (and thus allowing more under stairs storage) will be a big help. In fact, this would probably be plenty when you consider there will also be sheds and things. But some things are too important to entrust to external sheds.

Also, this reminded me about the wine cellar. Where or where shall we put that? It doesn't have to be a huge place you actually sit in, but we do need space to store it. Hmmm.


#159: Light on two sides of every room
When they have a choice, people will always gravitate to those rooms which have light on two sides, and leave the rooms which are lit only from one side unused and empty. Therefore:
Locate each room so that it has outdoor space outside it on
at least two sides, and then place windows in these outdoor
walls so that natural light falls into every room from more
than one direction. Don't let this make your plans too wild
however; you can stick to the essense of the pattern with
windows on one side only if the room is unusual high, if it
is shallow compared with the length of the window wall, the
windows large, the walls of the room white, and massive deep
reveals on the windows to make certain that big windows bright
against the sky do not create glare.


This is another one that is obvious when you see it written but I'd not thought about before. With the exception of the pantry, WC and walk-in closet, I think we're OK on this front. I guess in most of those places we could solve it through judicious use of skylights.


#191: The shape of indoor space
Every space which is recognisable and walled enough to be distinct, must have walls which are roughly straight, except when the walls are thick enough to be concave in both directions. Acute angles where walls join are hardly every appropriate. Ceiling shape matters too - there are some kinds of shape which tend to make people feel uncomfortable:



Therefore:
With occasional exceptions, make each indoor space a
rough rectangle, with roughly straight walls, near right
angles in the corners, and a roughly symmetrical vault
over each room.


Now this is interesting. I disagree with it partly, after the experience of visiting Casa Battlo, one of Gaudi's amazing houses in Barcelona. This was very curvy and organic... it looked odd in pictures but standing in it felt very very comfortable. But, that is at an extreme, and we are not going to be able to do that. So, generally I agree.

Also, I like the point about roofs. In our travels we've stayed in lots of B&Bs, several of which were renovated barns. Everyone has always raved about them, big ceilings, etc. But I've never found one that I've liked being in, not to sit and watch TV or sleep, anyway. They are just too cavernous. I always thought I just had odd taste, but now I understand why... it's the ceiling shape!

I think we will be OK on this front with our current plans... The upstairs rooms have interesting ceilings that I can't quite imagine yet but I think they will feel more like dormers? Perhaps I shall ask Dave to do a sketch, he is good at envisaging stuff like that.


#193: Half open wall
Rooms which are too closed prevent the natural flow of social occasions, and thenatural process of transition from one social moment to another. And rooms which are too open will not support the differentiation of events which social life requires. Therefore:
Adjust the walls, opening and windows in each indoor space
until you reach the right balance between open,`flowing space
and closed cell-like space. Do not take it or granted that
each space is a room; nor, on the other hand, that all spaces
must flow into each other. The right balance will always lie
between these extremes: no one room entirely enclosed; and no
space totally connected to another. Use combinations of
columns, half-open walls, porches, indoor windows, sliding
doors, low sills, frenchdoors, sitting walls, and so on, to
hit the right balance.


I like this. I think we will achieve it inside mostly through the use of indoor windows. It gives me a place to display my stained glass collection as well.


#209: Roof layout
It helps to bring the patterns to life it the roof plan is organically related to the nature of your building. To do this:
Arrange the roofs so that each distinct roof
corresponds to an identifable social entity in the building.
Place the largest roofs - those which are highest and have
the largest span - over the largest and most important and
most communal spaces; build the lesser roofs off these
largest and highestroof; and build the smallest roofs of
all off these lesser roofs, in the form of half-vaults
and sheds over alcoves and thick walls. When a wing
ends in the open, leave the gable end at full height;
when a wing ends ina coyuryard, hip the gable so that
the horizontal roof edge makes the courtyard like a room.


This I'm leaving to Eric, but it'll be fine. It's OK in the plans so far, and also on his website he says part of his design philosophy is that buildings "can be 'read' - the internal layout is visible in external form"

Speaking of Eric's website, it's been updated, there seem to be lots of new pictures compared to the last time I looked. And they're just lovely. I feel very confident that together we'll come up with an incredible house because everything I've seen that Eric's done just feels right - even the stuff he does in a more modern style I like, it feels warm and inviting. Having also just visited Oak Park, I am noticing details more and some things, like the curved finish on the top edge of the stone chimney feel similarly nice (sorry can't link directly to it so this is the picture)

How lovely is this?! Not only is the use of the stone gorgeous and helps roots it to the ground, but the shape gives it a character all it's own. It's worth a browse in his project gallery if you're interested in this kind of thing... it'll also give you a flavour of Australia too. :-)


#232: Roof caps
There are few cases in traditional architecture where buildiners have not used some roof detail to cap the building with ornament. The roof cap helps to finish the building, it gives it a human touch. The power of the cap is of much greater than its proportions would lead you to expect - consider how dramatically different these two buildings appear:



Therefore:
Choose a natural way to cap the roof - some way which is
in keeping with the kind of construction, and the meaning of
the building. The caps may be structural; but their main
function is decorative - they mark the top - they mark the
place where the roof penetrates the sky.


The picture says it all really. I totally agree. I even have just acquired via Ebay an old factory vent that might be useful for this, even if it's just on the shed... (I'll post up a picture separately).

I want an eNook

I think this eNook is a great concept... basically, it's a narrow cupboard with storage nooks including charging plugs for all the electronic detritus of modern life. It hangs on a wall doubling as a bulletin board, only folding out when you need. I can imagine this kind of thing could be great in the kitchen or entrance hall.


As is typical, it's only available in the US (so far) but I figure it would be easy enough to do a DIY version with a bit of creativity.

should we have a metal roof?

Last night we watched an episode of Grand Designs which featured a house in Devon with a copper roof. The house itself I didn't much like but they showed samples of how the copper would age over time. After a few months it would go a lovely mottled browny red, and after a few years it would start to take on a green patina. I can imagine it being gorgeous.

Which raised the question - should we consider having a metal roof other than the traditional 'colourbond' sheets? Copper is probably way too expensive for us but there might be other options... for example, this is an example of a house with metal shingles.


Besides the look, there are also apparently other benefits. According to this article, they last longer and are more fire resistant.

inspiration from Lyvden New Bield

A few weekends ago, when we drove up north to collect the armchairs, we stopped off en-route at Lyvden New Bield.

This is a National Trust property that I've wanted to visit ever since seeing it on an episode of 'Hidden Gardens'. It consists of a very atmospheric ruin over 400 years old - except it's not a ruin, it just was never finished! It's designed full of Catholic symbolism in the measurements, carvings, etc. Quite extraordinary.


There is also an Elizabethan garden, one of the oldest gardens in England. It has huge spiral mounds, laid out in a grid and surrounded by rectangular waterways to make a sort of moat.


These mounds are seriously big! They were built from scratch using the earth from digging the moat. To give you an idea of their scale, this is me standing halfway up one.


Overall, the garden had an interesting feel to it - unnatural and yet organic combined. In an odd way, it reminded me a bit of Casa Battlo, the wonderfully unusual apartment designed by Gaudi in Barcelona. (by the way, the photos don't do Casa Battlo justice... I hated it in photographs but standing in it I fell in love)

I was curious to see this garden in person because it's a very different sort of garden to the most. It uses earth shapes as much as plants for effect. The only other garden I've heard of like it, which we're going to attempt to visit in May (on the one day each year it's open to the public) is the Garden of Cosmic Speculation. I'm intrigued by the idea of creating giant sculptures out of earth; it might be interesting to experiment with something like this at Amherst.

ideas from October roadtrip

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been away. Last week I got back from two weeks holiday driving round Northwest England with Mum. While away, we visited many historic homes and gardens, including Blackwell - a famous Arts & Crafts house I’ve been desperate to see ever since I heard of it. Besides being a fun trip it’s given me lots of inspiration for Amherst, especially for the garden. Here's a selection:

Blackwell in Lakes District
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fireplace tiling with bold colours and just a few patterned tiles for contrast...	...and high mantles
interesting shelves around mantles and alcoves	this is while it was being restored but it shows clearly the lovely barrel shaped ceilings

Blackwell is a turn of the century Arts & Crafts home, designed by MH Baillie Scott. It was only restored and opened to the public a few years ago and still has almost all it’s original woodwork, tiles and stained glass. It has a wonderful feel to it and is quite distinct to Standen although they share a similar heritage. It’s the first time I’ve been inside a house that looked like a stereotypical Arts & Crafts design from picture books. It felt very liveable even with the sparse furnishings as everything was in the perfect proportions. My favourite parts in every room were the fireplaces; each was different and had an adjoining inglenook, often larger on one side and almost always with windows. Unfortunately they wouldn't let me take pictures inside but there's some photos at the main site and a good article about it with more photos here.

Levens Hall near Milnthorpe
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reminder of how effective it can be to have a short hedge of box around island beds
wonderful pale pink flower with beanlike seedheads, staked waist high in an autumn border	boring but practical...having an overflow drain at the side of garden ponds

Levens Hall has reputedly the world’s best (and oldest) topiary garden. It was fascinating, but perhaps the biggest learning for me was to avoid topiary! Not because it looks bad – on the contrary, I discovered it can create an Alice-in-Wonderland type atmosphere done en-masse and was surprised how much fun it was to walk in. But, it takes decades to establish and maintaining it is clearly an impossible amount of work; I just can’t see myself managing to do justice to anything but the simplest piece. You can see more pictures from our visit here.

The Courts Garden
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Incorporating a formal marsh-like border around a pond	Having lots of berries for Autumn colour
Using grasses to create a shimmering walkway	Planting hedging shrubs at the base of fruit trees, so they can be sculpted into a ‘collar’
Using holly for hedging and sculpting hedges into more organic flowing shapes

The Courts Garden is a National Trust garden about a half hours drive outside Bath. To see the full set of photos from our visit there, click here.

Hollytree Cottage B&B
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