Yesterday, I had the pleasure of acting as Guest Butler over at Head Butler where Jesse Kornbluth champions delightful books, music, movies, and the occasional product.  You may have heard Jesse on NPR; he’s an author/editor/writer obsessed with “New Stuff that’s actually exciting and Great Stuff that’s been overlooked”.  I stepped briefly into his shoes to share my take on Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, a c. 1948 movie for today, starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. Grab some popcorn and dig in.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

photography by Eric RothIf you find yourself on Boston’s South Shore or coastal communities, pick up a copy of the Autumn 2009 issue of Cape Cod & Islands HOME.  In it you’ll discover a story I wrote about a West Tisbury home on Martha’s Vineyard, which I teamed up to design with independent collaborators.  The house is Vineyard casual plus a dash of urbane décor.

Click here to see a PDF of the article. 

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

I’m fascinated by the mind/body connection. This may be, in part, because I’m an architect. I believe that shaping spaces, which our bodies inhabit, can shape the minds inhabiting them, and vice versa. So I often find Drake Bennett’s writing about cognitive and behavioral science in the Ideas Section of the Globe intriguing.

This week Bennett wrote about thinking literally. Bennett reports that cognitive scientists are studying how commonly understood metaphors are the “keys to the structure of thought”. When we describe someone as warm, a situation as heavy, a goal as lofty, or a problem as hard, we are using what scientists call “primary metaphors”. These they believe are more than communication tools but “markers of the roots of thought itself”. Scientists are taking metaphors literally. According to Bennett, "without our body's instinctive sense for temperature -- or position, texture, size, shape, or weight -- abstract concepts like kindness and power, difficulty and purpose, and intimacy and importance would simply not make any sense to us".

To study their theory, scientists are conducting experiments “altering one side of the metaphorical equation to show how it changes the other”. Give folks warm cups of coffee; then ask them to assess a person described to them, and they find that person to be warm. Give some other folks iced coffee; ask them to assess a person described to them, and they find that person to be cold. O.K., it's a little more complicated than that, but, yikes. Are we really that literal and that suggestible? Looks like it.  Bennett writes that “metaphors reveal the extent to which we think with our bodies”.

This would suggest that subtle changes in our environments: how soft, hard, dark, light, smooth, or rough they are would influence how soft, hard, dark, light, smooth, or rough we feel. It’s always fun when common sense prevails. 

Take a look at other House Enthusiast posts (here and here) which also reference Drake Bennett’s writing for Ideas.
 
by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Click on this photo to see it in the KHS photo note cards/prints gallery.Surf the web this week, and you’ll find the House Enthusiast Primer on the third dimension referenced at Things That Inspire. Using abundant interior images, Things That Inspire translates the concepts described in the House Enthusiast Primer to interiors via photos illustrating a range of spatial depths and heights in well-appointed homes. Both webposts invite readers to train their eyes on a dimension vital to shaping our experience. Whether the third dimension is expressed overhead, in a framed view corridor, on a textured surface, by an articulated stair, or with a spatial illusion, our environments are richer for having explored it.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Me, me on the family Seawind KetchMuch to my surprise John Black, who blogs from northern California via A Verdant Life, nominated House Enthusiast for a MeMe. 

I featured A Verdant Life as a web neighbor last spring in hopes of sharing John’s wise and witty posts on garden design, landscape design, and, well, the verdant life, with House Enthusiast readers. 

I’m thrilled to accept the MeMe torch from John and to pass it along, which involves satisfying a few rules of engagement:

1. Link back to whomever nominated you.
2. Reveal seven tidbits about yourself.
3. Nominate and link to seven other blogs.
4. Notify your nominees with a comment on their blogs or in emails.
5. Notify your nominator(s) when your “acceptance” post is up.

Seven formative influences on my passion for designing, discussing, and framing place in and around our homes:

Click to read more ...