120 square metres

Today I invited myself over to visit a friend whose partner is an architect, they live in a heritage cottage with a laneway rear extension, a grand total of 120sqm. I liked it a lot (without knowing if that's a lot or a little); it reminded me of A Tiny Apartment (my fave blog, by a person whose partner is an architect too!), as it had upstairs loft study space, downstairs kitchen/dining/living space, corridor of art/book shelves and smaller/unseen bedrooms. A kid came home from school, presumably on his bicycle or dropped off by neighbour, politely nodded and ignored me once they'd grabbed food from the pantry. That's what I like. 

We chit chatted from mugs I also admired and honestly, it was like being in South Hobart, complete with a friendly neighbourhood lady who dropped off spare football boots. I asked the partner if being an architect involves being good at problem solving and he said yeah, and defining the problem, that matters, and then my friend and I expanded on this: spatial problem solving, small spaces, knowing complicated things like physics and angles, warm in winter, cold in summer, without much aircon or heating. I'm impressed as the aesthetic was also charming, upstairs loft areas were bounded with tennis nets, lots of books and prints. 

Umm, enjoying reading Hilary McPhee's book about university and becoming a publisher, I keep skipping ahead waiting for Helen Garner to appear, but I know I need to slow down and live through the sixties, which even for inner city Carlton, sound dull. But it IS interesting to understand how under recognised people are, culturally, and the importance of differentiating between social and economic capital.