MOM, YOU CAN’T MOVE THE SOFA.

“[...] design recognizes that every act has the capacity to adjust in order to tell a better and more ethical story.”

 My mother literally moves our living room furniture around every month. Dad and I are never shocked when we come home late at night and bump into the sofa – on the opposite side of the room then when we left. She constantly rearranges the house to suit how we are living at that moment. If we expect company that month, more seating options appear. If she is doing a large art project for the local Women’s Club, the storage cubbies come out. And – I swear – if dad makes her too angry she shifts the coffee table over just a few inches so he rams his big toe into it. This kind of laissez faire design just does not work for her, and that’s why she needs to constantly shape the room to fit our month to month life.

I’m sure that many [passive aggressive] women around the world do this – not just my mom – and it might be (totally is) the fault of the designer. When architects fully take over the design (as in the modern period), everything is planned in great detail. Hell, Mies himself would go back to the house and tell them not to move or replace the furniture as it ruins the design. (He and my mother would get along famously…)  But that’s only designing for the design itself. 

More recently, architect have been designing on a larger scale for corporations – leaving large amounts of ‘flex space’ that may or may not work for the programs within. This type of design simply placates the user. It’s a “well I gave you a living room so buy a new couch that fits” approach. This only makes the user adjust to the space – making my mom move the sofa yet again. If she were included in the design process, she would be able to integrate many of the functions into the space and make the space unique. She would not need rearrange the furniture constantly, as the space would suit her every need. However, if my family ever moved out of the space the next family could easily start rearranging their furniture to fit their needs, and mom’s new living room would not be up to her standards. As architects, we need to design spaces in such a way to allow both current and future users to live the way they want, even if they live contradicting lifestyles.

Architecture can go either way – making the user adjust to the space or planning it around the user. Different scales call for different methods, but the current and future user needs consideration no matter what. Someday in the future, mom wants me to design her ‘dream house’ and I plan to include her in the design decisions. But I always threaten that I’m not going to let her move the g.d. sofa.