“When I as an architect open up a dialogue at the building site with the carpenters and we making solutions together, starts a beautiful moment. I open up their proudness and a star starts to glim in their eyes. “
So when I as an architect integrate the construction workers and the carpenters into the process and they contribute with their knowledge – then we receive the achieved architecture.
Because I listen to them and they start listen to me. I ask them and they start asking me – the only way to control projects where God is in the detail. No technology can receive this thrust. And it doesn´t cost any sums of money, it just needs respect for each other. These workers are my tools to make the architecture I want.
As an owner of a small office with a lot out of the box solutions and working in a quite traditional region I have developed the method of communicating at the building site. Often supported by my sketch book, pen and tape measure.
This S.O.S –“Solved On Site” method is the only way for me to catch the tight schedule and budget with reduced resources. I involve the carpenters into the solution making, and catch their knowledge at their platform – the building site. And usually with a lot of sketches as the result of the dialogue. We solve it together and as the method declares itself we do it in an effective way.
When I develop architecture, making extraordinary solutions I don´t manage only as an architect, I manage as a team coordinator. And the basic tools are mouth, ears and hands.
Sources also tell that Alvar Aalto could catch the language and level of the carpenters on the building site. Alvar Aalto even moved to the bigger building sites. Or brought best carpenters from Finland to building sites for example the villa Maison Louis Carré in France.
It doesn´t matter what kind of high tech or software we have if we can´t communicate or cooperate and most of all be humble. We all know that working as a team brings successful results. And this is built with respect, thrust and humanism. Especially today we need it when the customer more and more listen to the main/construction entrepreneur and not to the architect.
Architect profession actually starts after drawings have been delivered.
At the site. And with humanity.
This thesis is a reflection of the Alvar Aalto week in Seinäjoki that will be held in September 2017 with the subject ”Technology and humanism”.