My kid asked me if I had any push pins. “For what?” I said. “You know, I just wanna hang this like this," as he nodded to the blanket he was struggling to hold up with both hands (think the 70’s game – Twister). There were blankets here, some sheets over there, pseudo-suspended in a kind of misshapen, tent-like assemblage. “OK, so I think we can get this thing just right if we make some adjustments,” I said confidently. I pulled some sheets taut, loosened up on a few others, added a couple improvised uprights and voila! A bedroom tent-like thing to be proud of. OK, so it was still a little iffy, but we were able to crawl into it. We had created a space!

And it was pretty neat. I don’t know exactly what made it feel so inviting. Maybe it was the way the light filtered through the filigree of the knitted fabric, or maybe it was the compactness of the newly created enclosure—all comfy and safe-feeling. It could have had something to do with my vantage point from the soft carpeted floor, or maybe it was just the fact that I was spending some time with my kid. We were both impressed. This was a space that made us feel good!

We’ve all had similar experiences of being in a space/place that made us feel something—an airport terminal’s large expanse of glass and intricate web of gravity defying structural systems, the energy of thousands of screaming fans in a stadium, a softly lit restaurant overlooking a dramatic cliffside sunset, grandma’s kitchen where everything just seemed to taste better or maybe it was the comfort and solitude of an old-timey country church.

At a minimum, a building should meet a level of “…firmness, commodity and delight.” Vitruvius, the Roman architect, was on to something. Translated, he was saying that the thing should stand up, accommodate an activity and make us feel something. That last one is the most elusive requirement and is what distinguishes a building from architecture. That’s what an architect is able to do when they get it right. It doesn’t always happen and, in fact, usually doesn’t, but when they hit the mark everyone knows it. It’s elusive because there is no formula for ‘delight,’ and it’s not something you can point to. It’s an experience.

The tent came down a few days later. We had moved on to a more formal and modular composition of used appliance boxes. No, our tent didn’t meet the requirements of firmness or commodity, but for a brief moment I could have sworn that we had had an experience that could only be described as delight.

Nik