Form Follows Function

The famous architect Louis Sullivan said:

"It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,


Of all things physical and metaphysical,


Of all things human and all things super-human,


Of all true manifestations of the head,


Of the heart, of the soul,


That the life is recognizable in its expression,


That form ever follows function.

This is the law."

The people who built our house certainly had an idea of how this house would function. At the front of the house was the front door and at the back of the house was a sliding door leading to a deck overlooking Chicken Creek valley. It is a house designed for a leisurely life, not a life based on even a modicum of self-sufficiency.

I wish that the builders had instead chosen the old farmhouse model, which had a front door for company and a back porch leading into the kitchen. That back porch was a work area. That’s where the garden produce came into the house. The back porch gave easy access to the barn, the chicken house and all the working parts of the farm.

Living as we do, our front door and entry-way have to fulfill both functions. Everything comes in the front door. The entry is filled with egg baskets and garden produce baskets. The floor is always muddy in the spring and littered with firewood detritus in the winter.

Over time we have worn a path from the front door through the yard to the chicken house. The path was bare of grass and muddy in rainy weather. Finally this spring, accepting reality, we mulched the path with wood chips.

It may not be a landscape architect’s dream, but it works. Form ever follows function.

Copyright 2013 by Shirley Domer