Time

By Jacob Kirst

President & Visionary, Lagois Design·Build·Renovate

Every once in a while, something reminds us to pay attention.

For me, it’s sometimes a piece of music. One is Hans Zimmer’s Time. I often find myself listening to it while driving through the countryside before sunrise, sitting quietly on the porch with a cup of coffee, or watching the first light settle across a calm lake.

It often leaves me with the same question: Am I just spending my time… or am I truly living it?

When we’re young, we imagine life is built by its milestones like graduation or marriage, or having children, or building a business or living in the home we’ve always dreamed about, or later, retirement.

Yet the older I become, the more convinced I am that life is rarely defined by its crescendos. It’s shaped by its notes like the gentle ones in Time. I can imagine this piece of music as a backdrop to the simple things I love. Coffee before the rest of the house wakes, for instance. Or watching the rain from a screened porch. Or a wonderful conversation that lasts longer than anyone expected.

In my world, it’s teaching my son to cast a fishing line. Or walking with my wife on a familiar path toward the light of an evening bonfire.

These are not the things you plan for, exactly. You don’t put them on the calendar. But if you’re really lucky, they happen to you, sometimes as surprises, and always as little treasures that turn into memories. They’re the special moments we carry with us.

I’ve had the privilege of working with many families as they imagine what their homes could become. Most begin by talking about kitchens. Sometimes it’s bathrooms or additions. They want to discuss windows and outdoor spaces and all kinds of down-to-earth things.

But I have to listen carefully to what they’re saying, because I have learned that this is not really the spirit of the conversation. It’s just the language.  

Beneath every floor plan is something much more human. At the heart and soul of it are people dreaming of having loved ones gather, or celebrating milestones, or watching grandchildren play from the kitchen window.

Sometimes they tell me about moments they miss, like sitting outside when it rains, or being able to use their whole home as they once did. They talk about growing old together safely where they have built their lives together.

One couple told me: “We want this to feel like us again.”

Remodel in The Glebe, a Lagois project

This is so much more than talking about more square footage. It’s about feelings of belonging, of connection, of peace, of confidence in the years ahead. They’re talking about the way the next chapter will unfold. It can be exciting but it can also be a bit daunting, even a bit frightening. They need guidance in shaping the new setting for their lives.

These conversations have changed the way I think about architecture. I no longer believe our responsibility is simply to design beautiful homes and leave it at that. I believe every home should allow us to live in the best way that suits us, our family, our careers, our futures.

Some homes encourage hurried mornings. Others invite slow ones. Some separate us. Others naturally bring us together.

For example: a kitchen island becomes the place where homework is finished, meals are shared, and difficult conversations are easier.

A screened porch transforms a summer storm into an evening worth remembering. A winding path leading towards home invites a special discussion. A window carefully positioned to greet the morning sun reminds us to begin the day looking outward instead of down at a screen.

These moments are shaped by design.

Architecture cannot create love, of course. It would be lovely if it could. But it can certainly encourage more opportunities for love to flourish. It can’t create peace, either, but it can soften life’s stresses and help us make room for a more meaningful life.

I figure the measure of a home isn’t how it looks on the day it’s finished but how it feels 20 or 30 or 40 years later… long after the walls are full of photographs, and the children have become parents, and the grandchildren know exactly which cupboard holds the cookie jar.

The greatest homes don’t become better with time. And, given enough time, they shape our lives.

Nature seems to understand this better than we do. The forest never rushes toward autumn. The lake never hurries the sunrise.

Perhaps we were never meant to race through life.

Perhaps we were meant to grow into it.

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