An edited conversation with a long-time collaborator, on why the most memorable rooms are also the quietest.
We sat down in the studio with an architect we have worked with on four residential projects. The conversation, edited lightly, ran for about an hour.
On the role of the wall
"For a long time the wall was treated as the background. In the projects that actually stay with me, the wall is doing at least half the work. The furniture is almost incidental."
On material honesty
"Clients now know the difference between a painted wall pretending to be plaster and an actual lime plaster wall. That literacy has changed what we can specify."
The rooms I remember are the ones where nothing is fighting for attention. Silence is a design outcome.
"When a finish is done properly, you do not photograph it. You stand in it."
