A short guide to reusing materials
· 2 min read
Materials should age well rather than stay new. Somewhere between a hillside plot and home, the notion finally made sense. If something here is unclear, that is on me, not you.
Trade-offs
It is not glamorous, but it holds up. There is no single right way to approach drawing sections, but some ways are kinder than others. What surprised me most was how little equipment it needed. Good courtyards is chiefly a series of modest, unglamorous decisions. I would rather do one thing deliberately than five things fast.
Half of the work is deciding what to leave out. We draw by hand early on; it keeps decisions loose. The adaptable part is seldom the hard part; consistency is. The best advice I got was just to slow down.
- Write down what you change
- Ask someone at an old warehouse
- Budget twice the time you expect
In practice
Daylight is the cheapest and most generous material we have. I keep a short list of things to try next; detailing is near the top. Here is what changed, and what stayed exactly the same. The low-energy part is seldom the hard part; consistency is.
What I would do differently
This began as a quick note and bit by bit turned into something longer. A friend once described staircases as still work, and the phrase stuck. A friend once described thresholds as still work, and the phrase stuck. Good buildings are chiefly made of good conversations. Nothing here requires a scale ruler, though it does make things easier.
What did not work
The difference showed up bit by bit, then all at once. The result is not perfect, but it is candid. I like retrofit that shows the marks of how it was made.
We start every project by spending time on the site at different hours. I like courtyards that shows the marks of how it was made. For a long time I treated renovations as an afterthought. Somewhere between the site and home, the notion finally made sense.
The best renovation keeps more than it replaces.
I wrote most of this on a still Tuesday morning.
small houses