As I detail the house for contractor pricing, the deluge of spring journals is arriving with the annual "Best Houses" issues. Most featured homes, like this one in Architectural Record, churn my emotions through attraction and repulsion. On one hand, the work is often seductive. The images are professional perfection, carefully staged and lit (and free of humans and apparent real-life use). They look like sets waiting for movie stars to perform within. They're for the 1%, or in this case (an 8320 sq. ft. personal enclave in the huge metropolis of Sāo Paulo), the 1% of the 1%. To its credit, Record's editor admits that these are not sustainable, energy-saving designs, but that they show "daring design and superior craftsmanship" to "influence... how Americans build and live". Fine, but I live in the real world and deal with real budgets that can be a frustrating challenge to do innovative work within. Hence the repulsion side of my conflict. I am inspired to push my designs further, but know that much of what I see in these publications is simply out of reach. Maybe someday I'll have designs featured in these annual issues, but will the editors look beyond my work to the splashier, trendier, posher submissions they'll be sorting through?
Architectural Record, April 2014, pages 82-83, "Casa P" house by Studio MK27. Completed July 2012. Cost: withheld.