2020 Palladio Awards
We don’t enter competitions.
Competitions don’t matter
Competitions are not important.
What is important to us is how our clients feel about their homes and not what some panel of judges might think or believe. Competitions do not prove anything. Most of the time the winners are not any better than the losers. Competitions take too much time to prepare. They don’t pay the bills.
That was what I thought. That is what I feel.
However…
…I found my eye was caught looking through the latest issue of Traditional Home magazine. The Palladio awards were open for submission for the 2020 awards. I saw the notification at the very start of the application period and we had some down time. Huh! Did we have anything suitable? Looking at recently completed projects, one stuck out as meeting the application guidelines. Huh! Ya know, the application fee was not too high… Huh!
So against my better judgment, I and my staff started the application process. Our client approved of the our use of their home, and we were off. First we had to gather the materials needed. Photos, plans, elevations, the things that might make a jury swing our way instead of another. The photos were the easiest. We had good photographs of the house already, we just needed to pick from the hundreds of photos the twelve that might tell the story we wanted to tell. A story about the resurrection of a venerable old house and property. A story of transformation from an unsophisticated, agglomeration into fine elegant home. A place that is both a private sanctuary as well as a public landmark. A story of a landscape changed from a wild jumble of trees and underbrush into a parklike oasis. The creating of a refined estate.
We needed an image to show what was there before. The point where we started. We found one that showed part of the old house. Really as much as could be seen at once through the trees. We took it from a color image to black and white to differentiate it from the images of the completed home. Looking at it now, the portion of the house shown is not bad. In fact it is the best the house had to offer and much of what is seen in the photo was kept. However, the exterior and interior are always connected. And the interior required that changes be made. What wasn’t shown, what we did not have was the bad parts. The parts that really wanted to be removed. Oh we had some corners and pieces, but not the overall. Nothing that imparted the original feeling of ad hoc growth. So this was it. We found that we had two other images taken from nearly the same spot, ideal for our purpose. One was taken during the demolition phase. The house was almost all gone – only the smallest part remained. Even then much of what is seen in the image would ultimately be removed. The windows, the roof, the siding, the interior finishes, the porch that originally so attracted our client to this house rather than another. The third photo was taken after the work was done. The house was complete and the owners were home. The three together begin our story. A tale of change and transformation. A story that changes everything and nothing as well.
The other images we used depict the work we did. The house from all sides, the entry, the kitchen, spaces where we had the most impact. Pictures that tell the story of living in a house that is connected to the land beyond. To the pool house and trails that encompass the property.
Once we had the images to use then we set about cleaning up the drawings. At the end of any project, but especially a large and long project such as this one, the drawings are a mess. They are a tool and they show the wear a good tool should bear. The scars and burnish are well worn. But for an award presentation, the drawings should be clean and sparkling. They will get a minute, if we are lucky, to catch the judges eye. They need to shout and tell their story. This is what we started from. This is where the Phoenix arose. See the ashes, see the brilliant plumage now. So we removed the notes and dimensions. We moved the lines that the builder needed and polished the drawings to try to shine them in a way to catch the eye. Here is the site. Here is the plan. Here is the elevations. Here is the pretty picture to show what we have done.
Then the part that is hard. I speak with drawings, with dirty sketches and scribbles to evoke a meaning and to convey what might be. I do not work so well with words. But we had to write a story. We had to write our story. We had to tell all of what we did…in one page of text. To condense two years of work to so few lines. A story that would be scanned at best while our photos and drawings held the stage, but a story that had to complement them all the same. I tried. I am sure I failed, But I had help too. I have a wife who teaches English. Who loves language and the written word. Most of all who would proof read for me and tell me what to change and what to say. Should we win it will be in no small part due to her aid.
So it is done now. It took too much time. It was hard to do. It is exciting to have competed…whatever the result.
And now we have pictures that celebrate our work. That celebrate the work of the contractor, the craftspeople, other designers as well. Photos that celebrate our client for having the vision and bravery to take on such a project. It is not just us. If we should win this award it is all of us that made it possible. It is all of us that should be heralded.
Thank you to every one that made this project possible and successful.
