Design Matters Most – Great Architecture is Theater | Hour 1

is truly, truly extraordinary and truly yours. And it's a difficult thing. It's a tricky thing for most people. If you're not a professional home designer, an architect or an architectural designer or a decorator, you may not you may really struggle with understanding where to start how to see a house. In fact, I know a lot of architects and decorators and designers who struggle with how to start

and where to see a house. Well, I want to approach the whole subject with you today in a way that I hope helps liberate your thinking and get you kind of in the groove on how to see your home. And that is that we're going to present a truth which I have understood for many a year now and has helped to guide me. Guides me through every whisper that we do, on every home consult, it guides me

through every project that we do. It is a fundamental truth to architecture and architectural design, and it is very simply this, great architecture is theater. Great architecture is theater. Now, don't be dismayed. That may make you think at first, oh great, Well that's even more complex because I don't know understand theater either. Yeah, you do. You understand theater far more I would say than you understand home design. And because of that, we're going to break these things apart.

Use that metaphor use that analogy for all that it's worth today to help you better understand how to start understanding every space in your house. It doesn't mean that we're going to turn you into a home designer today. It doesn't mean that we're going to bypass the creativity and the gifting of those who are do this professionally.

I don't. I'm not putting myself out of a job here, but what I am doing is hoping to center you in your understanding of exactly what we're trying to do with every space, every room, every approach to your home. So today on the program, it is a Design Matters most morning, and we are taking on the whole subject that great architecture is theater, all right, so go nowhere, and of course we're gonna be taking your calls as well.

The phone lines are open right now, and when it comes to calls, you can call me about anything you want. So we're talking architecture as theater today. You can call me about that leaky toilet or the weird thing that's going on with your roof, or anything else construction DIY, design concerns, whatever the case may be. When it comes to calls, you set the agenda. Here is the number to reach me. Eight three three two ask Dean eight three three to ask Dean A three three the numeral

two ask Dean. The phone lines are open now. And speaking of that, let me introduce our awesome team. Elmer, of course is on the board. Good morning, Elmer, what why?

that's born and raised in Bondai Beach. It is. It's one of the greatest beaches in the world. Ritchie, where's your uh where where's your accent? Uh? You know, cultivated San Fernando Valley.

KFI break room. Oh, very exotic. Although when uh, when Elmer mentioned water, I did grab my water, and I'm very bad at doing that. So all right, well see soon you work on that water, and by maybe by the second break or so, you will be as charged up as Elmer is this morning, because you'll before. Yeah, sitting across the table from me, there she is. You know what she said right before we went on the air. She's like, so handsome. I did say that, you did.

I did. That's why. That's why we keep you right there, right across the table. That's why we've been married for thirty My better half, my design partner, the co founder, co owner of House Whisper, and also the person who happens to be my best friend in all the world. Tina is here there you Yeah, I waited. I paused for the elephant. Tina loves elephants, loves them. I just watched an elephant on Instagram Save a gazelle. Save a gazelle. Yeah, it was drowning in the water, and it used its

trunk to pull it out of the water. Oh oh, and then it used it to scratch its back. Elephants are the best. All right, We've already got calls showing up on the callboard. That's great, that's fantastic verying is falling into place for us this morning, for you and I now to enter into this time of thinking about home design. And honestly, I'm excited about today's show because I've used this, you know, in presentations, in conversations with

clients before. I've used this metaphor often. You've heard me say it from time to time here on the show, that great design is theater. I'm going to break that apart for you this morning into real crunchy, practical bits so that you understand exactly what I mean by it. And if you hold on to that metaphor, you won't lose sight. I promise you won't lose sight of how to approach what's right, what's wrong, what's missing, what needs to change about that troublesome space or spaces in your home.

I promise you.

handle for them all. And uh, if your home is in need of some personal house whisper attention, you can always book an in home design consult with me and the t I'll be talking about those or referring to those throughout the show today, just to as we're discussing how we go about moving through a home and helping people understand what they need to change or what they could change or what they could improve. But if if you're looking for that for your project, then you can

get me and Tea over there. Just go to house Whisperer dot design and you'll get more information. Okay. Oh and by the way, the number to reach me because we will be going to the phones in a bit eight three three two ask Dean. It's just that simple to ask Dean. Eight three to three the numeral two. Ask Dean. Okay, let us begin, shall we? All the world is a stage. That's what Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet. I would change that to all your home is a stage.

And I don't mean this in the flippant, artificial, superficial kind of facebookie everything in my life is glorious kind of way. I mean in a very very real sense that our homes have the potential of being stages. That they are theater in the best of ways, in that they can tell stories that thrill us, that comfort us, that wrap themselves around us, and that we can and that affect us every day. My family room is a lovely stage that Tina and I have designed for us,

just for us. It fits us well. I was up this morning. It's overcast, it was cool, very very misty. The house was kind of cool this morning, and the sun was not up yet, and it was a great time to pour myself a cup of coffee and go over to where our fireplace sits in the corner of the family room and a little seating area that we've created there, a little set, a little stage. There's two beautiful leather club chairs that sit there and swivel in

one of them. My beagle, Samuel, Sammy the beagle sitting there sleeping in one club chair. I took the other. I lit the fireplace, I sipped my coffee, ate a little oatmeal, and had thoughts about the day. And at one point, as I was thinking about the show, I paused and I thought, yeah, eggs exactly right here, sitting next to this beautiful, not awesome, not awe inspiring. Because I live in a cottage. I'm not trying to drop jaws with what happens in my house. But it's lovely

and it's beautiful, and it's warm and it's inviting. And I was the recipient of all of that this morning. I was in the middle of it all. And that's the kind of experience that I want you and your guests and your family and everybody who moves through your home to have when it comes to your home as well. And that's what I mean that great architecture is truly theater. I'm going to use an example later of a story that we all know, and it's not an example of

a home. It's an example of some greater piece of architecture. But instead of trying to find out a house that everybody who's listening to me has been through, been to, or seen or understand, I'm going to use something a little bit more or grand. But the point is we're gonna illustrate how powerful a story can be when it comes to architecture. Every space is a stage, every angle of view is a scene. Every element of a space is either a leading actor or a supporting actor or

some part of the setting behind it all. They're not competing for center stage when it's done properly, but they are complementing each other, each in its place, working to tell the story. The house. Your house is never about one scene or one actor. It's always about the story, and the presence or the absence of every element is all about telling that story. Every scene has a purpose, and therefore every scene has a setting. It has a focal point, a hierarchy of elements and actors, and a

sequence of experiences. That's what we're going to try and deconstruct this morning. These ideas may seem too lofty for your humble place, but I promise you. I promise you that if you haven't looked at your house in this way, it will revolutionize the way you see it. And if you haven't looked at your house in this way and run it through this kind of filter, you haven't given it the chance to be all that it's capable of being. That's all I'm saying. So you hold with me and

do this exercise with me as we go. Right now. When it comes to theater, there are advantages that theater directors and movie directors have over architects and designers, and the advantage is they have more control over your attention, over your direction. Right, a director can choose to center the subject in the frame and simply not move the camera, and if you're going to watch the film, you are there and you don't have the choice of looking left or right or all around.

movie directors, because they will not have complete control over your attention by simply being able to limit your focus to what it is that they want you to see. They are going to have to compete with the entire variety of the environment and the fact that you can turn your head and look away from the story that they're trying to tell. But right now, as it stands, directors of stage and screen, they have more control. They can center the subject in the frame, they can hold

you there. You know, A very popular move and technique in filmmaking is what we call focus pulling. You understand what that is. It's when we're using a very short depth of field in I say we as if I'm a director of a film. I'm not. It's when they use a very short depth of field of focus, meaning only one thing can be in focus and the background is not in focus. Right, and so maybe there's a character in the background having a conversation with our lead character.

Our lead character is in focus and they're a little bit fuzzy, and then when they comment, the director pulls the focus from the front back to the back character and now they're in clear perspective and our other character is out of focus. That's pulling focus. That is a way of simply moving and forcing you to move your attention from one thing to the other. These are all control mechanisms that great directors use. On stage, we use spotlights, right.

A spotlight isn't just to bring a lot of light onto somebody. It's really The purpose of a spotlight is to de emphasize everything else around it. Okay, it's just the opposite of what you would think. You would think. Ah, spotlight is to bring all is to light me up brighter than you know. Regular stage lighting light's an actor up just fine, But a spotlight darkens everybody else around so that your attention is where you want it to be.

And then, of course there's editing in the process, especially editing when it comes to film, ruthless editing. All of these ideas have a corollary in our textual design, and all of them are the kinds of things that you can apply when it comes to looking at your space. And so that's where we're gonna begin. We're gonna take all of these ideas that I've just described to you, and we're gonna begin by walking into a space. So

here's what I want you to do. I want you to think of the space in your home, any space at all, especially if one is troubling you. Okay, I want you to think of that space. And what we're gonna do right after the news is we're going to take one step into that space from its primary position of entry. Okay. The way that you enter that space, and we're gonna stop right there and we're gonna ask some theatrical questions about what it is that we see.

All right, you hang tight, think of that space. Hang tight.

It applies to everything across the board, be it ever so humble. There is no place like home, and there's no place like a home, even a humble home, that has been designed in such a way that it tells the beautiful story of your beautiful life in the most effective way possible. And that's what we're about here, talking about home as theater today. That great design is theater. So before the break. I said, here's the thing. Imagine that one place in your home. Maybe you're standing there.

Maybe you just listen to me on the stream, or you've got the speaker playing in the bad maybe you're there right now, standing there. Here is the space that you've had trouble with. Here's the space that has not impressed you. Here's the space you wish you could do more with. And I want you to step up in your mind or in reality right now either way, step into it, just or maybe not even into it yet. Stand at the threshold of that space. From the direction

or the way that you enter that space. So if it's the room like a bedroom or something like that, stand in the doorway. If it's a family room or a dining room or a kitchen, wherever it is. However, it is the primary way that you move into that space. And I understand, I fully underst there may be more than one way to move into that space. And we're going to do this. I'm going to tell you to apply these principles from every single angle of view that

you approach a space from. Okay, that's what makes it tricky at times. But let's just talk about the primary way you enter a space. Okay, you're standing there and you've decided, Okay, this is how we enter a space. From where here we are, Now, now what do we see? What do we see? And this is asking you to have eyes beyond where your brain usually goes, because the problem that most of us have about our homes is

that we're house blind to our homes. We've lived in our homes for so long we've moved through that it doesn't have to be years and years. It could just be weeks and months. Okay. The human brain is very plastic and it adapts very quickly. We move through a space, and when we move through a space time after time, day after day, hour after hour, then our brain starts to put our experience of that space, push it down

into our subconscious. That's actually what we call mastery. You've started to master the space as far as movement and working with it, but you've very likely lost mastery over its actual appearance. For that, we need fresh eyes, new eyes. Okay, So we're standing there in the entry to the space and we're asking ourselves what do we see? Now Here

is where we apply the rules of theater. Is there a focal point like I was talking about earlier, where a film director centers the subject in the middle of the screen, so you can't you look away, or there's some things in focus and everything else is blurred out, or something is there's some technique for bringing your attention to a particular place, you know, And again in the movies,

there's a million ways to do this. Maybe the entire scene is black and white except for the little girl in the little red coat, like Stephen Spielberg did in Shindler's List, and it doesn't matter where she is on the frame. It is simply the only dot of color in the entire view, and therefore your eyes are just drawn to it. So we don't have that level of control in that simplistic way. Not to diss on movie directors,

it's just harder with architecture. But the question remains, when you stand in this space, is there a focal point? In other words, you may have a lot of actors on this stage. There may be a lot of things that we're looking at, but you know when it comes to theater that there's a hierarchy of things happening on a stage. Right. Not every actor is a leading actor, Not every body on state. There are leading actors, and they've got the most lines. They are the ones who

are carrying the story the most. There are supporting actors who come and go and help support the story. There are extras, which are just bodies in the background. They're not actually you know, they're murmuring or eating dinner or blah. They are not driving the story forward, but they're supporting the general ambiance of the scene. And then there's the

setting itself. Okay, there are layers, aren't there? And the question is this space that you're staring at right now, are those kinds of layers there or is everything kind of set up in one flat plane where everything and anything could be drawing your attention and there's no focal point. Okay, Now, doesn't mean that every room has to have a show stopper, or that every room has to have some super fancy, artsy expensive thing. It's just a question of what is

the focal point. We were just at a home on Friday. On Friday, I promised them that this show was not about them because I wrote it before them, but I'm going to mention them. We're in this home and beautiful folks, and as you walk down this hallway, you have no choice but to enter the living room through one portal, and when you stand on the threshold of that portal, there is no question that the far wall of the

living room slash family room is a symmetrical image. There is a window on the left and a window on the right. And guess what's in the middle. It's a big vaulted room with a tall, tall ceiling, and smack dab in the middle is the fireplace. There is no way to deny that in that room, the fireplace is and should be the focal point. That only means that it's your leading actor. It only means that when you walk into this room, that's your best shot to put

words in that actor's mouth. That is your best shot of beginning to tell the story of what this room is all about. You're vibeing with me. You're starting to understand what I'm saying. All right.

that troublesome space in your home. And it could be anywhere, could be everything, could be each room that's been neglected in these terms. It could be the front of the house, the back of that. It doesn't matter. These rules apply every time that we give somebody a view of any part of your house, honestly, and I don't want you to be overwhelmed by that. I just want you to know because we're breaking it apart room for room, space for space as we go. But the rules apply, the

rules of really good theater apply. So I've had you imagine whatever that troubling space is or the place that you wish you could do more with. And we've been talking about the fact that a focal point is your first hit. It's your first hit as you enter that room or even when you stand at the threshold of that room, asking the question is there a focal point? Now, in architectural terms, we call this hierarchy of elements, and

that sounds all very you know, academic. I just want it to be clear to you that we're talking about a focal point. We're talking about what is it that directs you, as somebody experiencing the room, to look where the room wants you to look first. And it should be said, just like on a stage, just like on the screen, that all the actors, all the elements, they all can't be talking at the same time. They all can't be crowding for the front of the stage. They

all can't be taking center stage. That's why there are lead actors and supporting actors and extras and scenes and sets and all of these things. And they are all in layers, and they are all very intentionally ordered. And by the way, the same holds true for all art. All art, whether it's music, you know, there is that one driving melody or rhythm that's running through the whole thing. There's one voice, or there's voices in sync with each other, you know, in music, or even in fine art. Now

let's talk about fine art for a second. Okay, as an example, let's talk about something that everybody has seen, right, maybe not in person, most of us not in person, but the Mona Lisa. Right arguably the most famous painting in the world. The Mona Lisa is set up for you to look at certain things in a certain order. And if you have never realized that, it's just simply a subconscious thing. And no, it's not her face that you actually go to first. It is actually literally when

you look at the Mona Lisa, it is her upper chest. Okay, not her breasts that those are all covered up and you know, dark, but right here, like where a necklace would be or should be, like right where her collarbones are. Okay, right there it is then, And by the way, there's nothing there. There's nothing there. It's just there's no jewelry, there's no anything there. Right, But it is the brightest spot in the painting, literally the brightest area the painting,

A large bright spot in the painting. You can go check this out. You'll know that I'm telling you the truth. It's a large bright spot in the painting. And there's not much going on there, okay, but it's large and it's literally centered in the entire frame of the artwork. When you look at the Mona Lisa, your eyes go there first, because it's a bright spot in the center of a relatively dark painting. And then since there's nothing there,

where do you go next? Well, you go to the next most interesting place, which is her face, and your eyes trail up. See they trail up. So here's the trick. Right, when this painting gets painted, the brilliant genius who did this. What he wants you to focus on is her mouth first, not her eyes, right, not her nose. So how does

he get you to her mouth? Well, he comes from underneath, comes from her collarbones, which is where he zips your eyes first, and then you trail up to the next most interesting thing, and you hit her mouth before you hit her nose and her eyes. And therefore the intrigue of the Mona Lisa, famously historically is that smile. Is she smirking? Is she smiling? All of the emotion of her face is piled into this tiny, subtle, strange, questioning expression,

the way she's holding her lips. This is the star of the show. Here is the leading actor in the view, right, And everybody talks about the Mona Lisa smile. Right. There is a lot going on in the Mona Lisa, by the way, a lot, right. Not only do you see the rest of her face, but you can look down at her hands. And in the background there are trees, there's a river, there's a bridge. Yeah, all of these things.

There's a lot happening in that painting. But the very first thing that your eyes go to is exactly where he wanted you to go to, which is this bright spot where nothing's happening. And then you trail up and you start pondering what is with her and that mouth? Okay, So the point is this, Yes, that's the end of your fine art lesson for the day. The point is very simply this, A really good artist, a really good

designer has exercises control over where its audience looks. Okay, And the same is true with your room that you're wrestling with, but the space that you're wrestling with. So the question comes again, I will ask you where is the focal point? So when I say that, I mean it in two different ways. Number One, what in the room is actually grabbing your attention? Is anything in the

room grabbing your attention? Maybe the answer is yes or no, okay, And I mean it in the second way, which is naturally speaking, by the shape and the contour and the elements of the room. What should be grabbing your attention naturally, like I said, in the home that we walked into on Friday, the family room, there is no question that between these two symmetrical windows there is this. The largest

single element in the room was the fireplace. And by the way, not our homeowners who had beautiful sense of taste, but the builders the original bills of this home, they totally botched the fireplace, watched it. It is the central element of the view. There's no way to enter this room without the fireplace being the central element of the room. Now you may say to me, well, that's the truth with my house too, but I don't really do fireplaces. Well it's time to do fireplaces. I don't mean that

you have to build a fire in the fireplace. What I mean is that you need to recognize the lead actor. You may not like the lead actor, you may want to defer to somebody else, But the fact of the matter is, if that's the central organizing principle of this space visually, then you got to deal with it. You got to deal with it and make the most of it. You see, all the world is a stage, so is

your home. Great architecture is theater. And if we start to understand that and parse that into its bits, then you can understand that not everything in a room can be the beginning of the story. Tina and I were talking about this too. Caustina comes from the world of graphic design and how quite often in the print of a page, especially in an older work, or the beginning of a chapter of an older book, we used to use drop caps. You know what to drop cap is.

It's when that first letter of the first word of the first paragraph on a page is like three lines tall, right, like that extra big D or an extra big T or whatever it is that starts that phrase. That's a drop cap. And what does it do. It draws your attention to this moment and it says to you something new is a beginning here, This is a beginning. See what I'm saying, ways of drawing attention the focal point?

the phones. Your home Dean Sharp, the House Whisper on KFI. This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time and every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.