The Wisdom of Tom Kundig

Architect Tom Kundig of Olson Kundig(olsonkundig.com) is something of a hero around the shop. And for good reason, he has created some incredible spaces. It is not just his aesthetic and use of materials that we appreciate, but his ethos and approach. I thought I could share some of his thoughts, quotes and general wisdom this week.

Context

Context is everything when it comes to design. And I really appreciate Kundig's approach. He calls it hyperlocal, spending time onsite, fully and tacitly taking in all the nuances of the site. Obviously the landscape determines so much, whether that be in the high desert, a Northwest rain forest, or a densely packed urban area. The natural light cycles, the weather patterns, and the climate are also taken into consideration. These influences particularly affect the mechanisms for making a house breathe, bringing the outdoors indoors and embracing the aging process. All of which are elements of his work. Like I said before, context informs everything from the materials and sustainability strategies to the overarching fundamental structure. A sensitive awareness of and response to context sets great design apart and you continually see this in his work.

Sustainability

I truly appreciate his approach and way of thinking about sustainability. He sees and tackles sustainability as the complex, "no one size fits all" issue that it is. In an interview with Inhabitat.com he says, "The greatest challenge is designing to an authenticity that recognizes the true issues of sustainability, not just treating it as a checklist of items or simplifying it to accommodate score keeping. Sustainability takes on a true, holistic understanding of all the implications of a design." He goes on to talk about the importance and need of coordination of environmental, cultural, and social sustainability. His approach to matters like sustainability have a pragmatic honesty to them, seeming to eschew the more popular prescribed systemized approach.

Materials

To be honest, it was Kundig's use of materials that first caught my attention. I am not an architect, though design and architecture are close to my heart, I do not think, see or process like an architect. But I was trained as a sculptor (a BFA in sculpture) so it is natural that it was his use of materials that caught my attention. He uses beautiful, basic materials, often in their raw state, in very straight forward honest presentations. Materials are put on display in a daring and celebratory way; celebrating their innate beauty and function. Concrete looks, feels and functions as concrete. The same with steel, glass and wood. His adept handling of these materials creates spaces that exude warmth despite our normal expectations of such components.

Homes

Over his career, the bulk of Kundig's work has been single family houses. This is because he sees homes as housing all of life's experiences. In an interview with seattlemet.com he said, "This is the reason I’m so interested in residential work. The home is primal, it’s visceral, it’s our primitive past, it carries all the baggage of our cultural life. It has to have prospect, the sense of being in the open; but also intimacy and protection. It has to encompass open and closed, hot and cold, fast and slow, light and dark, yin and yang. That’s how we experience life, and that’s how we should experience a house." He goes on to talk about how he enjoys working with those wanting to build their own homes, because they are "curious about life" and "thinking about what it means to live in a house." "In a custom home, you're painting the value system of the owner." I find this last statement so true. Regardless of how the structure actually turns out, if the designer does their job, it should reflect the values of the owner. Again, I feel that Kundig is getting to something to the heart of what design is, or at least should be.

He also spoke of the architecture of homes in new way for me, a way that I feel transcends just architecture and speaks to the broader ideas of design and creative output. "A home's detailing and its landscape are very similar. Even immense landscapes are based on microscope moments and a well designed home is its reflection.""There are Large scale and small scale situations inherent in every site, whether it's rural or urban; as an architect, you fold those macro and micro influences into the experience of the home. That is what architecture is all about." This concept of folding the macro and micro together is priceless.

Quotes

Just a few more of my favorite quotes:

"Only common things happen when common sense prevails.”

"Architecture is a profession of wisdom, and it’s rare when you see that wisdom in a young architect."

Links

A short list of links for your convenience:
seattlebusinessmag.com

seattlemet.com

archdaily.com

inhabitat.com

curbed.com