Dine in or takeaway?

Do you prefer to dine in, or takeaway? The answer is probably: It depends.

So, what does it depend on?

Let’s make it simpler and see if we can narrow it down:

If you are at a cafe and just getting coffee, do you prefer to dine in, or takeaway?

If it depends, what does it depend on?

• How rushed you are?

• If you’re with someone?

• If it’s the weekend?

• If you’re at work?

• How busy the cafe is?

• If you brought your keep cup?

If it doesn’t depend on anything, what basis has fixed your decision?

• You don’t use takeaway coffee cups for environmental reasons?

• You only drink coffee when you have time to sit down?

• You only buy coffee from a hole-in-the-wall which only does takeaway?

• You only get coffee from a place which only does dine-in?

• You get your coffee in a takeaway cup regardless because you like the taste?

Contextual decision making vs pre-decision making is an interesting contrast in approach.

Food first, front and centre

It’s a close call to say which is the heart of the home: The fridge, the stove, the kitchen table, or the pantry.*

Either way, it’s food first.

But the face we present to our neighbours, the front of our home is usually more like: A garage, a fence, a hedge, or some pillars**.

What about putting food first on the face of our houses?

There’s a few ways we could do this (for starters): A half-height fence with raised garden beds/planter boxes along the street front, a vegetable garden instead of the front lawn, an openable kitchen window directly onto a street with our coffee machine immediately next to it, or a bee-friendly flower garden***.

What would you rather see when you’re walking down your street?

*I might also accept a fireplace, but they’re still much better with a liquid in hand. Don’t you dare bring the television into this.

**One of my favourite things is two-storey pillars on the entrance to a 200 square metre home.

***I don’t think this is too long a bow: bees are essential to food production. And they make honey.

Takeaway or 'have here'?

How did you have your last coffee? Takeaway or 'have here'?

Without even venturing into a discussion about the sustainability of takeaway coffee cups, ponder this:

If you can't stop for ten minutes to drink a coffee in your favourite cafe, you need to stop for ten minutes to drink your coffee in your favourite cafe.

Coffee, cost and rational passionate home design

Value is in the eye of the beholder and it seems that, these days, price is more reflective of value, than cost.

When we buy a coffee at a cafe, we're not buying a coffee, we're buying the experience of the coffee. The anticipating, ordering and drinking of the coffee, and the planning, thinking and enjoying the cafe.

So for the budget-conscious, the challenge is to replace this routine with an alternative that has equivalent value, at a lower price.

It's why bench-top coffee machines are a hit. It's why niche coffee-machines exist. It's what instant coffee advertisements try to sell.

Of course, it is a different experience. We can't replicate the cafe experience at home. What we're trying to do is replace it with a coffee-drinking experience of equivalent value.

If we can do this, we haven't lost anything, we've just saved money! It's a rational, passion-based approach to designing our experience, and spending our money.

We can apply the same logic to our approach property. Or at least, the budget-conscious among us need to!

Our questions is the same: How can we achieve the same result (realise the same value) in a building for a lower cost?

This might mean that our original idea (drinking a flat white in a cafe) needs to radically change (making an Aeropress at home). This is a question of design. It turns out, Architects can be very helpful with design. Especially when we don't know what we don't know.

It might mean that we spend time reflecting to distill the essence of what we value (e.g. the caffeine kick in the long black, or the velvety milk in the flat white) and realise we can still achieve the same outcome in a different way (e.g. instant coffee, or a bench-top coffee machine).

If we go on the journey, we might just find that the reason we want what we want, is because we value what others have. We go after what we know exists, and what we can get.

A value-based home might not look quite like every other home you see around. Unless of course, what you value is being like everyone else, at which point you're job is easy!

For the rest of us, there's some thinking to do.