I’d rather be home with my family. There, what’s more to say?
Many people might say their favorite place is far away, an island get-a-way, a special place where they met, perhaps a restaurant or coffee shop. Some guys like to be outside, perhaps in the woods. For me this is simple; I like to be home.
If I might digress for just a moment. I love to travel with my family. New places and new experiences are something we look forward to each year. We tend to travel somewhere new each summer. Nevertheless, these memories are made with my family. Home is not home without my wife and my son.
Now, I’m not going to limit my definition of home to the four walls of my actual house, although I could. I am going to say I prefer to be near home in my hometown of Greensburg, PA. One might not find anything special about my area, but it’s all I know. Its home. With the exception of being away at college, I have lived here my whole life. Despite several houses and apartments, they’ve all been oddly within a very small area within the City of Greensburg. When we decided to build a house, we were fortunate to find a lot in the city.
Earlier this week I left a bi-weekly construction meeting and was headed to lunch nearby as I often do. It was earlier than usual, so I decided to head towards my office. I found I kept going until I came back into my home town. I guess I just preferred to be closer to my office, closer to home. I ate at a local place and headed back to the office. I prefer to frequent local haunts.
As an architect, this has profound meaning to me. My job is to create a place, create spaces that someone else will call home. It’s a tremendous responsibility to design someone’s home and architects strive to create special places that will allow our clients to create their own memories and hopefully develop a sense of attachment. It’s an awesome responsibility. I’d love for my clients to WANT to be home. I’m glad to have any part of that.
People need to feel connected, people need to be home. Dorothy was right.
Below are the favorite places of some of my friends. Please take time to read and interact with their posts today. #architalks
“Enoch Sears – Business of Architecture
@businessofarch
Where Do You Like To Go When You Aren’t Working?“
“Matthew Stanfield – FiELD9: architecture
@FiELD9arch
Ruby Slippers“
“Marica McKeel – Studio MM
@ArchitectMM
Do You Have a Favorite Place?“
“Evan Troxel – Archispeak Podcast / TRXL
@etroxel
My Favorite Place“
“Lora Teagarden – L² Design, LLC
@L2DesignLLC
ArchiTalks meets #ThisOldHouse“
“Cormac Phalen – Cormac Phalen
@archy_type
Baltimore“
“Andrew Hawkins, AIA – Hawkins Architecture, Inc.
@hawkinsarch
My Favorite Placein the Wild“
“Jes Stafford – Modus Operandi Design
@modarchitect
Making Space and the Favorite Place”
“Michele Grace Hottel – Michele Grace Hottel, Architect
@mghottel
favorite place“
“Meghana Joshi – IRA Consultants, LLC
@MeghanaIRA
Oh, The Places You’ll Go!“
“Michael Riscica – Young Architect
@YoungArchitxPDX
MIT Chapel – My Favorite Place“
“Stephen Ramos – BUILDINGS ARE COOL
@sramos_BAC
Cinque Terre“
“Brian Paletz – The Emerging Architect
@bpaletz
Favorite Place(s)“
“Tara Imani – Tara Imani Designs, LLC
@Parthenon1
Favorite Place – Architalks 8“
“Jonathan Brown – Proto-Architecture
@mondo_tiki_man
Favorite Place“
“Eric Wittman – intern[life]
@rico_w
my [first] favorite place“
“Jeremiah Russell, AIA – ROGUE Architecture
@rogue_architect
favorite place: #architalks 5th edition“
think | architect 
Good one, Lee. I wish every architect realized that is their job.
…yeah, well…?
Very profound look at what being an architect is all about. Lovely photos – thanks for sharing your thoughts here!
Coming from someone at WA Design, that’s quite a compliment. I love the bravado of the Folger Offices.
Nice post Lee. I think home is always a special place. Seems that other would agree. Nice comments on how that feeling should translate into your practice as an architect.
It’s often hard to discern between how I live personally and how I practice as an architect.
Beautiful article Lee. It really hit home about the essence of residential design.
Creating connections…lovely. Well done.
How nicely put! – Yes indeed, you have the responsibility of helping your client “be home”. One of our friend’s house is in a beautiful location, but no clue what went wrong, it ended up like a haunted house- there is a draft of air in one of the rooms that gives an eerie feeling.. and then there are those ceiling details that are off center. I don’t know about them, but every time I visit, I end up being very uncomfortable. The doors just close by themselves because of the placement.. Oh well, long story short, the architect didn’t study the site well before photocopying his famous design.
As always, love the blog!
Maybe that architect wasn’t OCD like some of us…thanks for the kind words. I’ve got so many of these to read!!!
Seems like we had similar takes this time round. I have not lived in Mansfield all my life, only about 1/2 of it. But i still think of it as home now.
I can really appreciate your sentiments about home and family.
On a bit of a side note, i did not realize US 30 went right to Greensburg. It passes through the North side of Mansfield as well.
It looks like we have yet another thing that connects us. I must take some part of Rt 30 several times a week. I think I’d like to visit Mansfield sometime. You’ve made it out to be the way I am hoping Greensburg is going.
I avoid 30 like the plague. Unless i am traveling out of town. It just is not efficient for getting around Mansfield. Besides, it is not very conducive to cycling. So i am only on it maybe a couple of times a month. But it is always interesting to hear about other places that it connects to.
If you ever find your way over here, let me know. I would be happy to show you around. I only hope i have not oversold it.
Architectuur is een vak apart. Je kan er je creativiteit in kwijt. Het is dan ook belangrijk om echt als een architect naar het project te kijken. Dit artikel vind ik erg leuk en daarom deel ik deze met jullie:Think architect [loosely translated by Google – Architecture is an art. You can lose your creativity. It is therefore important to really like an architect to look at the project. I like this article very much and that is why I shared this with you].
A home is such an important thing- one of the most important things in life in fact! It is really important that the use of poor trades companies is prevented. We must promote the use of highly experienced people when working on homes.