You’ve made the money to the tune of nine digits. You have a sense of class and therefore you deserve a house that is out-of-this-world. At the same time you wouldn’t like the edifice to portray you as being extravagantly out of touch with reality. How do you go about it?
You will need a good designer and a top-notch architect, and these don’t come on the cheap. But is it only money that these professionals need from their clients?
I believe that they crave for more beyond financial benefits. There are those who also want to create a mark in the environment by creating what inspires and will cast memorable mental images. Buildings can create lasting images in our minds — think of the Sydney Opera House, for instance, or the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Locally, people are tired of seeing similar buildings, and professional fees no longer inspire architects so much. There are not many inspiring architectural fees to rescue houses for tomorrow either. People are yawning because of similar spaces and all too similar buildings from all too similar designs.
Buildings are looking too much alike, roofs are looking all too similar and walls are looking no different. Boring is the word. There is no life in charges by designers and architects and people are enduring through those assignments, instead of enjoying creating good and enjoyable environments.
For bold clients with inspiring assignments, avant-garde projects are being sought. Unfortunately, this type of client is a rare bird.
First, what should their briefs contain? What should their instruction to the designer be? Of course I am addressing the stuff beyond “I would like a four bedroom house,” or “please draw for me a five-bedroom mansion with a creative roof.”
After you indicate that you want a house with spacious lounges, dining rooms and kitchens, reception lounges and guest quarters, swimming pools, barbecue gardens and wine and tea bars, what else should you ask for? Will you cap it by asking for a ‘creative’ roof? Or what should you ask?
I mean, every client is asking for these and nothing more. Nobody seems to ask for the extra in terms of design and creativity. And I don’t mean either beautiful wardrobes or cabinets and floor finishes.
I believe there is more to demand from a designer beyond the bedrooms and kitchens if a Sh300 million house is to exceed function and create inspiration. By the way, this kind of stuff is not for everyone. It is for those who dare to dream, and every developer and his architect should.
One of the most important aspects in a building of this nature is its setting. Context is permanent in most cases. There are very few cases of buildings that are movable, literally, as whole or parts to be erected in other places, and therefore adaptable to different contexts. We are not talking tents.
What about structures inspired from nature but expressed with common materials such as bird nests, spider webs or leaf structures? What would be the implication of the structure on the overall form of the house? The unconventional structure has hardly been attempted or explored in Kenya, and it’s high time it is tried.
There is chance to make simple structures with elegant consequences in terms of a building’s overall design aesthetic. The overall form of the house should be extraordinarily good if the subject is to stand for anything meaningful beyond function.
The client should decide what this is, but a progressive and a bold one at that should encourage their designer to stretch imagination limitlessly. Though a good house is a subjective standard, there is a large consensus about what an inspiring piece of architecture is.
All these are ideas that are achievable in budgets, whether slim or large. What is needed is creativity on the part of the designer, and courage and brevity on the part of the developer to try new methods and techniques.
There are too many buildings today that are good enough; few are memorable though, and fewer are inspiring. Barely are any sculpturally uplifting and hardly any adorable. Actually, what are available in plenty are functional compositions.
I am of the opinion that people want a break from the ordinary, and that there are developers who have the guts and vision to chart the way forward in new commissions that are inspiring to people. However, these good buildings are not only for the rich, unlike the popular view. Those with constrained budgets but open minds and free spirits can achieve magnificent buildings as well.
What a generous Sh300 million budget does is that it increases the opportunity to do so. Good architecture is for both the poor and the rich.
Kathuli Patrick is an architect working with the Kenya Wildlife Service
Progress
Contemporary building is the way, it is not taught at school but good architects can do it.