An introduction to Defining Place, and to why premature solutions create downstream problems.
by Henry B. Thompson, Architect
Defining Place is a way of thinking about what a place should become. It begins with the land, which is the primary canvas: the path of the sun, the changing seasons, the way daylight and shadow cross a room, the material and texture beneath your hand, the sounds and scents of the landscape, warmth and shelter, and the comfort of simply being there.
Place isn't static. Morning is different from evening and summer is different from winter. Materials weather, light moves, and people and families change. The question isn't simply what a place looks like when construction is complete. It's what kind of place it becomes.
That thinking is developed across the Defining Place Insights, and brought together in What Makes a House Become a Place?
Most projects begin by choosing an answer: renovate, add on, rebuild, open the floor plan. The answer arrives before anyone has defined the question it is supposed to solve, so the real need is assumed, and the decisions that follow are built on the assumption.
Problems then travel downstream. Cost, constructability and availability, which could have shaped the project while it was still information, arrive after much has already been decided, and have to be dealt with as redesign or substitution. Constraints surface after commitments have been made.
The goal isn't to begin with all the answers. It's to understand which questions the project depends on.
The thinking behind this is in Renovate, Add On, Rebuild — or Move?, What You Actually Need in a House and When Construction Knowledge Should Enter a Project.
Define Before Design™ is how Defining Place begins. It means establishing what a project and its place actually need before design determines the answer: who will live there, what they are trying to accomplish, the conditions of the property, the investment and the priorities when good things compete.
The result is not a design. It is the definition the design will answer to. What Should Be Defined Before Design Begins? sets out what that includes.
The method carries an understanding of place from its existing conditions and earliest intentions through the decisions that shape what it becomes, and how it is cared for over time.
You can begin without an architect. Each of these takes a few minutes and is explored further in the Insights.
Write down an ordinary day in the home you'd want to live in, hour by hour, then a Saturday with guests and a quiet winter evening. See What a Custom Home Is Designed Around.
Notice what your hand touches, what you feel beneath your feet, which surfaces feel warm or cool, and how it smells when you move from outside to inside. See How Material and Texture Shape a Place.
Look at where light falls at different hours, and what each moment does to the room. See How Light Shapes a Place Through the Day.
Not a design. The definition the design will answer to.
Request a Defining Place Session Explore the Insights