Walter Segal

  I have spent most of the day watching videos and reading about the Segal method of building.  I like lots about it but it also feels very architectural.  I think the image above has the look of a Segal design in that it shows its structure on the outside.  This timber frame sits on light foundations that do not require leveling.  Much of the technique is about simplification of building to make it achievable by the untrained.  The structural integrity relies on a tartan framework that sits on a series of flagstones which are supported by concrete foundations.  The flagstone is set at an slight angle for runoff and the foot or wooden pillar is wrapped in lead which seals the end grain.   I am not sure what attracts me to this system that feels limited and Fordest.  The buildings look like something from the 1970's, they are light and optimistic.  They don't look like something I would build though.  They lack a certain Gothic dimension, the in the moment rugged, northern industrial chic that a Sheffield  garden may require.  They remind me of my dad in their insistent practicality and rationality.  I may say that form follows function but when I see it enacted in practical modernist simplicity I long for the superficial and the messy. I like the stuff on the surface, the fact that buildings have both a skin and an envelope. 

I priced up materials and everything seemed prohibitively expensive, Ceder shingles, tanalised timber, double glazed windows, wood wool boards.  I again had the feeling I was making a pastiche, when I was looking for some sort of honesty. There is a gap between the Segal approach and the small buildings I love when I encounter them in the world. The Humberstone Fitties  or the upturned boat sheds on Linderfarne.  The makeshift dwellings of the plot-lands.  Either Thoreau's, Walden or the brick built shed at the Riley's house where we used to watch the rats steel the chicken food.  I feel a long way away from making any decisions. Perhaps I need to decide on materials and make this process more about building something practical again.  The proposition may be more simple than I think.  In the short term without some sort of simplification it feels unlikely anything will happen.  I wonder if overthinking is the same as over-coding.

Perhaps it was not a wasted day it just felt that way.  There are too many separate things going on to form a raveling, the raveling needs the making along the line for it to take shape, for it to tangle. I am sorting out the threads, tidying up the draw full of bits but the doing is missing.  The design process entwined with a low level anxiety about becoming pointless does not feel nomadic even though a destination feels unlikely it is still a pull in a direction, a map, a plan a move away from the smooth space of possibilities.