Design that’s perfect but not precious

MILLERTON, N.Y. — “I am mesmerized by the presence of absence,” said Robert Bristow of Poesis, a design firm in Lakeville, at a presentation at The Moviehouse in Millerton on Saturday, Aug. 17.This was not art-speak. Bristow was talking about how empty spaces in otherwise solid objects show mass, thickness, depth and heft.The example was a table he and wife and fellow designer (and architect) Pilar Proffitt designed and built.They made 5-inch cuts into the solid wood block that is the base of the table — 5 inches because that is the size of the blade on the saw they used.And in doing so they made an ordinary block into something different.Bristow and Proffitt design and make furniture. They design interiors. They design entire houses. Sometimes they do all of it for a client.Bristow talked about the elements that go into any project — the site itself, and ecology, client needs, budget, access, resources, construction costs, materials, labor, context …“If you’re not careful the original idea can get lost,” he said.The Poesis duo prefer a hands-on approach, he continued. “Learn the limits of the materials and processes, so you know where you can go,” he said.The couple’s Lakeville home, on an old farm, has a workshop space “with simple but fantastic equipment,” Bristow said.“We use thick, real materials. If we have something on hand, we make it.”Bristow said sometimes he works from drawings, but he leans toward making models. “Then we make the parts.”And during that process, the original concept tends to evolve.Bristow likes to keep things simple in terms of color. “I value a limited palette,” he said. “Do something with one color and do it well.”He showed a series of three photographs in which different shades of purple were prominent. “Here is the color of cool, of discomfort, of mystery.”He emphasized the importance of texture — “These are the things we see with our hands, feel with our eyes.”Contrasting textures emphasize and complement each other — a touch of something rough makes the smooth surface smoother.And as materials start to age or show signs of human use, that introduces the element of time.Bristow said he sometimes goes with an additive approach — adding layers to “get to the notion of what came first.”Or the reductive approach: “Just hack away at things and reveal what was there all along.”Proffitt said that after several years in business, “I came to realize the life part was more important than the architecture part.”She decided to take a look at the couple’s body of work in a retrospective way, and came up with a framework that helps put their work in context.For “greeting,” she said, “How the building greets the audience sets the stage for events to occur. Maybe back doors should be considered front doors.”Under “reflection,” she said she looked for the “moment of poetry” in a given design. She called them “coffee cup moments — when everything is OK.”“Where you put your stuff in your house is so critical to how you feel,” she said about the next item, “organization.”“We need compartmentalization, because stuff trips us up. A lid on a bin can easily contain all the evils of Pandora.”Proffitt said it was important for a structure to give the “impression of structural stability.”“If a building looks like it’s going to fall down it makes the occupants uneasy.”She described “whimsy” as the moment where strength and whimsy come together. “So we start to break the rules. It’s OK to be playful and messy and colorful.”The couple have two young children, and the photos of their home, and the children’s play space, underscored the “playful and messy and colorful” remark.During a question-and-answer session after the talk Proffitt expanded on the mess concept. “Mess is going to happen,” she said. “The designer has to think about where things end up.”Their solution is small bedrooms for their children, and a larger communal playroom for the toys and the chalkboard wall, etc.Bristow said, “You can’t be too precious,” referring to the sort of home that doesn’t look as if it ever contained a dirty sock. “We’ve had clients like that. They scare me.”For more information on Poesis, go to www.poesisdesign.com.