Curiosity Before Design

Essay by Bryan Koehn

I have always thought of curiosity as something that fuels creativity. Lately, I have begun to wonder if they are actually the same thing.

As I begin two new residential projects, I find myself deliberately resisting the urge to sketch. That might sound strange coming from an architect. Designing is what we do. But I am beginning to believe that designing too soon can limit what might be discovered.

Before I design, I want to become curious about the people, about the place, and about the relationships that might eventually connect people, place, and home.

A small human gesture, shaped by what the place provides [photo by bryan koehn]

Discovering How Someone Wants to Live

Traditional architectural programming is particularly good at collecting information. How many bedrooms? How many bathrooms? How large should the kitchen be? Do you need an office?

Necessary questions. But they tell me little about how someone actually wants to live.

I am more interested in what happens between the rooms. How do you move through an ordinary morning? Where do you go when you need to restore yourself? Do you read in solitude or in the middle of everything? Is music background or ritual? How does your family gather, entertain, celebrate, or retreat? What memories of home have stayed with you? What do you hope will stay with the people who come after you?

These questions begin to uncover patterns: movement, routines, relationships, feelings, joy. They help me understand not simply what someone wants in a home, but how they want to feel living there.

A room can satisfy a program. A home needs to support a life.

There is also a natural trap in beginning with what we already know. We experience design through houses we have visited, images we have saved, Pinterest boards, styles, materials, and rooms we admire. These references can be useful, but they can also narrow the conversation before it begins.

Ask familiar questions and we are likely to get familiar answers.

The problem is not that people do not know what they want. They may simply never have been given permission to think about home beyond what it should look like. We do not often have the opportunity to reflect on how we really want to live, what brings fulfillment, what restores us, or how a place might support the relationships that matter most.

What if we begin with how they want to feel?

How they want to move through a day. What brings fulfillment. What restores them. What creates joy. What they want to experience with the people they love.

They don't know what they don't know. Neither do I.

That is why we become curious together. Discovery cannot be standardized because people are not standardized. Some answer directly, while others tell stories. Some are emotional and descriptive; others are playful and casual. An important idea might appear in a carefully considered questionnaire or arrive unexpectedly in conversation.

The words people choose matter. The details matter. Even the way they describe something matters. The challenge is not simply asking good questions. It is learning how to listen to each person differently.

Some places reveal themselves slowly. Curiosity asks us to keep looking. [photo by bryan koehn]

Discovering Place

I approach a site in much the same way.

A survey can tell me where the property lines are, how the land slopes and where physical features exist. But it cannot tell me what it feels like to stand there.

So, I walk. I stop. I look. I listen and feel.

I pay attention to what my senses are telling me before my architectural instincts begin telling me what to do. What is visually striking? Where does the sun move, and what patterns are created? Where does the land feel protected or exposed? What is already living here? How does water move? Could the site produce its own energy? What parts of the ecosystem are thriving, and which could be restored?

And one of my favorite questions:

What are the hidden assets?

There is almost always something: a view that wasn't obvious, a particular tree, a change in elevation, a relationship to water, a direction the wind moves. Something the owner may have walked past a hundred times without recognizing its potential.

I know I am beginning to form a relationship with a site when I can stand there and imagine how the introduction of something new could make the place better.

Not simply where a house could fit, but how a home might participate.

How could it strengthen what is already there or repair something that has been diminished? How could human habitation and the existing ecosystem become partners rather than competitors?

That is where site analysis starts becoming site relationship.

What deserves to remain? What could become better because we are here? [photo by bryan koehn]

Discovering One Another

There is another relationship forming at the same time: architect and client.

For me, it is about finding alignment. Not consensus. Consensus can require someone to compromise. Alignment allows us to understand where we are going together while continuing to bring different perspectives to the journey.

I know we are approaching that alignment when curiosity becomes mutual. The client begins wondering what might be possible. Questions lead to other questions. Ideas begin traveling back and forth. There is a kind of rapt anticipation. We are no longer simply exchanging information. We are discovering something together.

Discovery is not something I do for the client. It is something we do together. I am learning about them and the land, but ideally, they are discovering something too. A pattern they had not recognized. An aspiration they had not found words for. A possibility in the land they had not seen.

This is where alignment begins to have consequence. We are not agreeing on an answer. We are developing a shared understanding of what we are trying to make possible.

And it happens differently with every client.

With one current client, that connection began developing through conversations, questions, and shared writing before we had ever met in person. With another family, it did not really begin until we were together, walking their land, talking face-to-face and experiencing the place at the same time.

There is no formula for this. The approach must be as individual as the people themselves.

Questionnaires help. Journaling helps. Walking the site helps. Conversation helps. But these are only tools.

The real work is creating enough connection for people to share what does not appear on a program: memories, aspirations, rituals, values, relationships and hopes for what might someday remain after them. The information gathered is rich, experiential, emotional and uniquely theirs.

Individual stories, connected within something larger.  [photo by bryan koehn]

Laying Their Story Over the Land

Eventually something begins to happen.

The words gathered from the people and the observations gathered from the land start occupying the same space. A desire for morning light encounters the movement of the sun. A memory of family gatherings meets a clearing in the landscape. A need for restoration finds a protected place overlooking water. A desire to age gracefully intersects with the slope of the land.

Words begin connecting to place. Feelings begin connecting to landscape. Human relationships begin connecting to ecological ones.

I think of it as laying their story over the land.

Not imposing their story upon it but letting the two meet.

Maybe the question is something like the one Louis Kahn famously asked of materials: what does this want to be?

What does this life want to be, here?

On this land, in this ecosystem, at this moment, and for generations to come.

That is where conceptual thinking begins for me.

The architecture is not yet there, but the ingredients are becoming visible: people, rituals, memories, light, water, movement, trees, views, ecology, joy, restoration, legacy.

And somewhere among those relationships is the beginning of a home.

What might grow from what is already here? [photo by bryan koehn]

Curiosity Is Creativity

We often think creativity begins when a line meets the paper. I am no longer sure that is true.

Creativity may begin much earlier, with the willingness to remain curious long enough to discover something you did not already know.

Perhaps that is why I have become less interested in starting a project by asking what a house should look like. I want to know how someone wants to exist on this piece of land. I want to understand what the land is already doing, discover what each can give to the other, and build the kind of relationship with a client where we can become curious about those questions together.

Only then do I want to draw.

Because by then, the blank page is not blank anymore.

It is already filled with relationships.

And that is where design begins.