Magical constraint

making a good house is not easy. And, it doesn’t always follow that starting with a great plan will necessarily generate great space and form, and make a delightful sequence of spaces to live in. Making a good house requires the addition of something else that’s hard to define – a sort of architectural magic. The stuff that turns bricks and mortar into a ‘work of architecture’ rather than merely a house. The word magic is not intended to undermine the intellectual workload required to make a good house. It is not to say that masterful architecture results come from a kind of sorcery, from abilities beyond our mortal worlds. It is just to say that the power of a good house is far greater than the sum of its constituent parts and, somehow, that seems magical. The magic