Chapter 10
Co-Design for New Lifestyles
CONTRIBUTOR PROFILE: JANE BURNSIDE
Jane Burnside is Principal of Jane D Burnside Architects. As well as publishing widely, she has also had roles advising the Northern Ireland Assembly on Rural Planning Policy reform and as a lecturer at Queen’s University, Belfast. Jane is also a former Rome Scholar in Architecture.
The houses we design should reflect the lifestyles that exist today, and there are as many different designs for contemporary houses as there are contemporary lifestyles. However, not all designers know how to read their clients, and not all clients know how to communicate their lifestyle needs to the designer. Although housebuilding has been popularised in the media, the actual process of design – that of communication and decision-making, moving from complexity to an artful simplicity that really takes into account client needs and desires – is rarely mentioned.
So while architects must recognise and respond to changing lifestyles, the public needs to be empowered with enough knowledge of the design process to help both to achieve the best possible design. I try to enable this through a rigorous consultation process that I have refined and reflected on through my writings.
Practice profile: Jane D Burnside Architects
Founded in 1993, Jane D Burnside Architects is a micro-practice specialising in rural housing and rural planning. The practice is based in Kells, County Antrim, and Tobermory on the Isle of Mull.
While the practice’s intention in doing research is to create a business advantage – setting itself apart from competing practices – it also reflects an interest in societal change, and architecture that is both grounded in place and in clients’ ongoing personal histories, explored through design.2
Context
Building one-off houses in the open countryside is permitted in Northern Ireland. While one might think this would present a golden opportunity for architectural expression, when I started in practice few new rural houses ever saw the hand of an architect – the profession was not interested. Instead, the public sought assistance from plan drawers who reproduced their stock of mock Georgian bungalows which were then stamped in series across the countryside.
Approach
Philosophy
Architects should not strive to design the ‘perfect’ contemporary house; rather we need to design contemporary houses that reflect various contemporary lifestyle needs. To that end, the architect needs to get inside the client’s head. This requires more listening and less speaking, behaving more like a therapist and less like a theorist!
Methods
There are three elements to the engagement process: vision, identity and context. Determining a client’s priorities within this framework requires active listening and questioning as well as an ability to detach oneself from one’s own ideas and preferences – a method somewhat akin to some interview methods in the social sciences3 – while site analysis uses other more graphical skills from the architect’s canon.
The vision
Imagine that you are at a dinner party where, instead of a name-card at your place setting, everyone has a cardboard cut-out of their house. What do you think the cut-outs might tell you about the people you are talking to? Would it make a difference to your impression of them?
Where we choose to live says something about our life’s vision, to some degree. So, how do we access a private view of our client’s personal vision?
Mood boards are usually prepared by designers who present their ideas to their clients. I reverse this by getting clients to prepare a mood board of images they love. Enabling clients to get in touch with what they really want from their new home helps me to understand what I need to achieve for them.
While mood boards address the heart, the brief addresses facts. There are two key parts to the brief: a schedule of accommodation and the client’s unique requirements. Though the former is a tangible list of physical spaces, the latter is about getting clients to consider how they will actually use their physical space on a daily basis; the aim is to understand how the clients actually will live, not how they might think they would like to live.
The identity
Although there could be as many different contemporary houses as there are contemporary lifestyles, similar design issues recur for similar groups of people. So we need to face the challenge of designing contemporary houses that reflect the various lifestyles of their occupants – the solo woman or man, different sorts of families, and retirees. The first challenge is to acknowledge that new groups that are emerging. For example, over a quarter of all US households were living alone in 2011, totalling 33 million Americans.4 New York University’s Professor Eric Klinenberg claims that ‘solitary living is the biggest social change that we have neglected to identify, let alone examine’.5 A similar trend is emerging in the UK,6 with other growth groups including blended families and retirees. We need to respond to the challenge by designing contemporary houses that respond to these contemporary lifestyles.
For example, some solo women do not want, in their homes, overtones of male dominance. Other women, who have perhaps experienced divorce, want their homes to feel secure. Still others, who have chosen not to have a family themselves nevertheless want their home to embrace a large extended family; a home for solo living may also need to accommodate large numbers of people.
Designing for the solo man presents different challenges to designing for the solo woman. Some men are concerned with the impression their home makes on other people – perhaps more so than some women. To really work it should be an honest expression of who the client is, and his particular brand of masculinity.
Today families come in all shapes and sizes, including blended families. With separation or divorce, families become more complex, and homes should reflect these changing dynamics.
Finally, our growing population of retirees often have a pioneering spirit – perhaps stimulated by the prospect of a new beginning – and this often brings forth the desire for a new home. Longer periods of indoor living mean that a sense of space and good-quality natural light – along with design for accessibility – becomes a priority.
The context
When a house is in the countryside you are adding a permanent object to a natural landscape shared by others – a sobering thought. Success lies in engaging clients with their site from the outset. I always start by finding a spot where we most enjoy standing – and take the clients through a process of imagining which room of the house they would like to be in at that moment in space and time. If a client feels uncomfortable on the top of a hill, it is unlikely they will feel differently if their house is built there.
Discussing the approach to the house can be very revealing. Approaches can be frontal, oblique or spiral; compressed into a short distance or expanded over hundreds of metres. The frontal approach is the architectural equivalent of a trumpet fanfare: not for the shy or faint-hearted. Oblique and spiralling approaches are best suited to those with a more carefree outlook, or an instinctive curiosity for life.
Discussing a client’s mood board eventually an overall sense of the new building emerges
Insights and Impact
By developing practice expertise – such as the approaches to vision, identity and context in contemporary rural house design – I achieve more commissions than I would otherwise. But what I am most proud of is that I have raised the level of expectation in rural housing design, empowering the public to demand better buildings from their architects and agents.
Lessons
For me, becoming an expert was fuelled by a passion to promote better buildings in our landscape: raising the design bar with a consistent vision; reforming government planning policy to include a focus on design and empowering clients through my book Contemporary Design Secrets: the Art of Building a House in the Countryside so they can demand better buildings for themselves. Other architects wanting to follow a similar path must realise that having a media presence is all-important; I have written hundreds of articles for magazines and newspapers showcasing my work and debating the issues related to rural planning – people keep them, and they appear from behind the mantle clock years later when they commission me! Having a rigorous intellectual foundation for these articles is important in communicating authority on the subject, as well as professionalism.