# Hidden, massive, small As my wife can attest, I have a fascination with interesting physical spaces. These fall into three primary categories: hidden places, massive places, and small places. In each, I enjoy seeing how the architect, designer, or builder worked in reaction to a set of constraints to create something usable. ## Hidden Places There is nothing in architecture that evokes such a strong emotional response from me as a hidden place, be it an abandoned building or an obscure equipment room. Sometimes the emotion is melancholy, or wonder, or trepidation, but it's always forceful and lingers on. Once during a consulting job in Philadelphia, we spent several weeks working in a dark, uninhabited upper floor of a skyscraper, filled from wall to wall with cast-off furniture, task chairs with wheels missing, and coffee-stained cubicle wall parts. Our only view was looking past old desks sitting on end, overlooking a [boarded-up skyscraper](http://www.iklimnet.com/hotelfires/meridienplaza.html) that had burned several years prior. Loved that space. I spent nearly two years exploring the underbelly (steam tunnels, air plenums, network closets, elevator shafts) of [Barnes Hospital](http://www.barnesjewish.org/) in St. Louis, Missouri where I worked as a network installer. It's amazing the amount of crud that ends up above the false ceilings in research labs. And it's more amazing to be given the master key to all of that. I got to explore the old Smith St. John building in Kansas City, Missouri just days before its demolition. A massive 1940's four-story brick office with a (formerly) elegant lobby, each room still held some vestiges of the prior inhabitants: random papers, a pencil stub, an old typewriter. The most impressive part, though, was the sub-basement, with 20 foot ceilings and an absolutely massive boiler, roughly the size of a steam locomotive. As an early teenager, I was allowed to explore the darkened complex of catwalks on top of a false ceiling, 92 feet above ground level, at the Kansas City Municipal Arena. A haunting and beautiful place, except for the fact that a maintenance person bumped into me and almost [[writing/next/love for spaces/a/almost fell|knocked me through the ceiling]]. Related links: - [Abandoned NYC subway platforms](http://www.nycsubway.org/ind/8thave/ind-8th-42.html) - [Abandoned subway platforms](http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/) - [Dark Passage](http://www.darkpassage.com/gate.htm) - [Infltration](http://www.infiltration.org/) - KidofSpeed [Chernobyl pictures](http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html) - [Virtual Museum of Dead Places](http://www.dead-places.de/) ## Massive Places I also have a particular interest in very large structures and the engineering, muscle, and ego that goes into building them. I particularly like the idea of very tall buildings, such as the mile-high skyscraper [proposed by Frank Lloyd Wright](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illinois), or the two mile-high one envisioned by [Eugene Tssui](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Tssui). Especially interesting are the concept of living entirely within the structure, and the details of how such buildings might work. Along those lines and inspired by an old issue of Mad Magazine, I've always wanted to build a perfectly normal suburban ranch house, with a nice garden and a patio, on the roof of a skyscraper. [Loftcube](http://www.loftcube.net/) is a step in that direction. Related links: - [Boeing 727 made into a home](https://airplanehome.com/) - [Øresund bridge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98resund_Bridge) - [Skyscraper Page](https://skyscraperpage.com/) - [Stretto di Messina](https://strettodimessina.it/web/) ## Small Places Another great pleasure is the effective use of small physical spaces, from airplane galleys to efficiency apartments. I love novel approaches to fitting a given amount of things into a three-dimensional space, all the while making them easily accessible and approachable. I'm a spatial person, and use the physical location of objects to jog my memory. As a result, at a previous home, I wanted a 'defensible' area on my house where I could spread out my things and not worry about them being moved around by my two little kids, my wife, or anyone else. However, taking over an entire room was out of the question, so I built a deep shelf into our office closet, about 5 1/2 feet off of the floor (with power and a small lamp), which only I can easily see and reach. That was my little oasis. I like flying coach. Really. And I'm [[too damn tall|6'6"/1.98m]]. And I've flown 1,000,000+ miles in my lifetime. There's just something calming about strapping yourself into that narrow seat, knowing that you have the next few hours of uninterrupted time to read, relax, or get something done. I've even explored buying a few seats (or a galley!) from an old jumbo jet, reupholstering them, and using them in my home office. My first office at my college work-study job was an amazing benefit of the job. It was on the third floor of an older brick building, on an unused corridor, in a room created largely by a dormer in the roof. The office was about 6' x 8', with a built-in desk down each side, leaving just enough room to move around on my roller chair. It was a little sanctuary where I could work, do homework, or just be. Come to find out, my parents also worked with a "smaller space" when they were first married. A while back, my father wrote to say: "I was reminded of your mom's and my first apartment. Literally a two-room, third floor apartment. We had a Murphy bed that folded down out of the wall and a large closet. The other room was a small kitchen. I attached a hollow-core door to the wall at one end and hung it from the ceiling on the other. Made for easy cleaning. We sat on wicker bar stools. On the north side of the main room was a dormer window. This was a space about five feet wide by six feet deep. \[I remember\] how we utilized this space for a cozy work/reading area. In one your mom is sitting on a daybed and in the other I have my drawing board. Same space, different uses." ## Elsewhere - [Not So Big House](https://susanka.com/not-so-big-house/) books: great visuals; I found the text a bit dense ∎