Thoughts on the In-Between

Last week in Boston, I came upon a potential Thesis topic of inside/outside and the in-between spaces.  Since I have been an architect for over 20 years, I have had a lot of opportunity to work on the insides of buildings.  Especially with my role at HGA of interior architect and my current work at Target on developer shell projects.  I have always been fascinated with how the landscape touches a building (or vice-versa) and yet I have not had much experience with designing those connections or adjacencies.  I am also intrigued by the way a thoughtfully designed landscape can touch our senses – sight, smell, touch, hearing, taste.  The colors, textures, sounds of the branches blowing in the wind all can be carefully planned to create a certain sense of environment. 

Living in Minnesota, the ground can be snow-covered for 6 months of the year on average.  That means that these in-between spaces can be fascinating half of the year and disregarded, anonymous spaces the other half.

When books discuss these inside/outside connections they typically reference buildings in southern or temperate climates.  I want to consider what it would take for an exterior space to remain successful year-round in a northern climate.  This does not necessarily mean that I want to see people inhabiting the spaces at 20 below zero, but rather that the spaces are pleasing to view and create a visual interest during the “off-season” that would otherwise be lost or ignored.

When we moved up here from central Illinois 22 years ago, it did not take long to realize we lost about 8 weeks of warm weather compared to Urbana.  We bought and moved into our house without having any sense of what was below the 2 feet of snow-covered earth.  Our house was painted white with black trim, and virtually disappeared into the landscape.  As soon as it was warm enough, we added some color to the house by painting it warm grey with forest green and plum trim (very vogue in 1989!).  Everyone was impressed with our colorful house; people would stop by to congratulate us on the work we were doing.  It eventually inspired some of our neighbors to paint their white (translated: boring) houses as well.  In winters, our neighborhood was a little more lively and fun than the neighborhoods surrounding us because of this simple shift in the aesthetic norm. 

"old house" with pruprle and green trim

"new house" with front proch added to flat facade

backyard of "new house" - a clean slate with in-between potential