A commission does not begin with a sketch. It begins with a measured survey, a brief that names what must happen in the rooms, and a walk of the site at the hour the building will be used.
The first conversation
The first meeting is not a presentation. We ask what must happen in the rooms, who arrives, where a table has to sit, whether the building will be held through construction or handed on.
If the answers are only about image, we are in the wrong conversation. If they are about use, we can start.
A survey that is drawn
The survey is drawn, not photographed. Dimensions, levels, the thickness of walls, the way a floor leans — these become the first constraints.
A slope that looks gentle in a picture is a metre of cut once you measure it. A han court that looks square is not. The drawing that records this is already a design drawing, because it names what cannot be wished away.
Walk the hour
We walk the site at the hour the building will be used. A house is walked in the late afternoon. A workplace is walked in the morning. A pavilion on a quay is walked when the wind comes in.
Orientation is not a north arrow; it is the life of the place at the time it matters. That walk usually changes one opening and one room before any massing is drawn.
The first plan
The first plan is small. It places the rooms that must face something and the rooms that can turn their back. It names the court, the threshold and the one long wall.
Structure is present even at this scale: a span we cannot afford, a wall we must keep, a stair that has only one place to land. Decoration is absent.
One plan, with reasons
Clients often expect options. We bring one plan and the reasons it cannot be another. Two alternatives are useful when the brief is genuinely split. A set of styles is not useful.
The brief is a list
The brief is written down in the same week as the survey. Not as a vision statement — as a list. How many people sleep. Whether a table must take twelve. We send the first plan with a short note that says what the plan refuses.
