by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

If you find yourself within driving distance of Brookline, Massachusetts Saturday, stop by and partake in Micro Mini Car Day. I attended this annual event five years ago and loved it. The playful ingenuity of participating cars from the 50’s, 60’s, and today is sure to delight folks this year as well. It's better than a hands-off show; rides are offered around the lawn in some of the pint-sized treasures. Don’t be surprised to see young and old lining up in anticipation.

Micro and mini cars were originally the genius of post World War II European engineers looking to devise modest cars that could be operated by injured veterans. To the industry’s surprise, these cars caught on with a far broader audience. Recognizing an opportunity, aircraft manufacturers, barred from aircraft design due to the Reparations Act, switched gears and began designing cars. Theirs was a fresh approach to devising an affordable mode of transportation. Micro cars with single-cylinder engines were capable of traveling up to 80 miles on a gallon of gas. They were highly maneuverable and most of all downright loveable.

Take the BMW Isetta (shown above). This microcar with 10” diameter wheels features a single, side-hinge entry door across the front that includes the dashboard and steering wheel. Outfitted with bug-eyed (or perhaps pug-eyed) headlights, two chrome bumper arms, and a flush snout, this two-seater has personality. In 1958 you could get an Isetta for around $1,000. Today, you can’t help but smile upon seeing one. These fuel-efficient wonders hint at not just the past, but the future. Go for a ride; you’ll see.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

We loaded into a van with eight others. Our tour mates had ordered tickets a year in advance too and were likely as determined as we were to see what the fuss is all about. Our guide, a pleasant grandmotherly type, in sensible shoes and a floppy hat, sat up front. She was a far cry from the young, fit, male guide, dressed in black, with thick-rimmed, fashion-forward glasses that you might imagine would lead such a tour. She was, however, a well-cast emissary for Modernism, setting the stage for a surprisingly non-threatening, intriguing, and even warm aesthetic. In several documentaries I’ve seen Philip Johnson do much the same.

A short ride later we came upon the property. You enter between tall brown, concrete pylons (which my mother described as tombstones) and below an enormous aluminum bar, triggered remotely, that travels vertically between the pylons. To me the gate felt like a retro vision of the future, which I suppose it was.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

As seen through the lessons gleaned from

My Stroke of Insight, a Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.

It’s serendipity that I read these two books back to back. Though their subject matters are divergent, they both spoke to me about the same thing: that we, as designers and individuals, have the capacity to perceive the complex with sublime simplicity, and to achieve the rewards of balance in our chosen fields and lives.

Curiously, the similarity between these books begins with appearances. Their covers are remarkably alike, both white with the title centered at the top, the author’s name centered at the bottom, and an illustration space in between. On Maeda’s, the primary image has an almost Spirograph look about it, which I took to represent the balanced middle, testing boundaries and swirling back toward the middle again. The primary circular graphic appears to be bouncing off the page to the right, while a smaller circular graphic comes into the frame, higher up and to the left, suggesting a steady stream of burgeoning ideas in development. Taylor’s cover illustration, a stained-glass representation that she made of the brain, rests on her book’s central axis. This supports her intention of sharing the beauty and clarity of the brain in balance. (See Taylor's TED talk here.) 

Maeda’s book defines nine (plus “the one”) laws of simplicity that can be applied to design, technology, business, and life. They are at once universal and specific. Since Maeda suggests that balance is vital to the laws of simplicity, I thought it would be fun to explore his laws from a left-brain/right-brain point of view, exercising my new understanding of the brain thanks to Taylor’s book. My aim was to discover if the laws of simplicity themselves represent the balance required to successfully enact them. Is simplicity a matter of left-brain or right-brain dominance, or the result of each working in balance?

I went on the tour in large part to get a better look at the pedestrian-friendly neighborhood of nineteenth century, brick, row houses, with their trademark stone stoops and wrought iron balustrades. I’d heard that it’s a diverse district populated by creative folks, so the varied and imaginative pocket gardens tucked within it, did not disappoint.

I was surprised by their decision, considering that there’s been great buzz and enthusiasm for the project on numerous other fronts. I greatly appreciate the web editors, writers, colleagues, friends, family, and House Enthusiasts who happily spread the word about my search for suitable projects to include in the book. Thanks in large part to their efforts, I’ve received dozens of top-notch submissions in the form of studios, guest houses, woodland and waterfront escapes, summerhouses, and quirky novelty structures.

I also want to thank the architects, designers, landscape designers, gardeners, and homeowners who embraced the book concept and generously shared their projects with me. I remain hopeful that another publisher will recognize the project’s potential. I think that many readers, in these trying times, can appreciate the appeal of creating small retreats of their own, in their backyards or beyond, where they can slow down, regroup, and refresh their lives. They simply need design inspiration. The imaginative retreats that I’ve collected over the past weeks beautifully exhibit the design characteristics that I aspire to share, so readers can create their own authentic, small retreats.

While I shop the project around to other publishers, I will continue to seek submissions. So if you have a project to suggest, please email me (Katie@katiehutchison.com). Check back with this category for updates. Together we can still shape an inspiring and informative book. We simply need the right publisher.

The elegant, engraved, flush stone denotes a site vital to Thoreau’s solitary cabin life in the mid-eighteen-hundreds. It was here that he stored the wood, vital to stoking the cabin fire that warmed him while he wrote. Without the woodshed, perhaps he never would have had the cabin experience that led him to write Walden: Or, Life in the Woods.

I imagine that the notion of acknowledging and celebrating something as fundamental and essential as the woodshed would have pleased Thoreau, as would the stone marker itself. Simple and rugged, surrounded by a soft bed of leaves, it seems a fitting echo of Thoreau’s hardy life amidst the natural world.

It is, after all, the luxury of life’s essentials, like wood for a warm shelter, which makes our intellectual lives possible.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast