As we begin to pack up our things and erase our presence from this borrowed space in Cambridge - returning chairs and planters and lamps to their original places and the apartment itself to its rightful owner - I realize not only how revealing this place has been about the spirit of the one who fashioned it, but also how intrusive it must have been for her to have us live here.

With every shift we made, every surface we rearranged, every picture we ignored, we “manhandled” a bit of her life. This was a place carefully constructed - both intentionally and, in part, no doubt unconsciously - to capture the spirit of its owner, her comforts, her pride, her dreams achieved and those unfulfilled.

So it is with all of us. All our homes speak narratives of ourselves, projecting our sense of self out to the world and back onto us again.

To have people live in your home must feel a bit like having someone commandeer your wardrobe.

Architects, too, are famous for feeling that they “own” the spaces they design and build. They can get outright outraged if and when the occupiers use the spaces for purposes other than those anticipated, or worse, actually make structural changes.

Which in some way gets us to the ways we build our world. Increasingly, we seem to build our cities and our suburbs and our malls and public places as if we - now - are the sole intended users, the ones whose taste and dreams and needs matter most. We seem to build for immediate sale and occupancy, so quality and design and longevity often suffer. And those who come after us have to fit themselves into the places that reflect us. Or tear them down.

But what if we imagined that we were building for the centuries? What if versatility, sustainability, mobility, accessibility, camaraderie and privacy were essential elements of our building requirements - not even so much by law but by practice, by habit, by instinct?

We could make the spaces our own as long as we lived there, but we would also know, like many cultures did not so long ago, that we have inherited the spaces of our ancestors, and so our children will inherit our spaces after us.

What would our cities and streets, suburbs and public buildings and homes look like then? How would the architectural curriculum be transformed, the building arts be reframed, our attitudes toward the spaces we enclosed and fashion change?

Our lives and our dreams are etched out in the spaces we devise. The earth’s surface and the world’s economy are reshaped by them. And we, in turn, are reshaped by the earth and the economy. It is an iterative, endless, feedback loop of a process. It is something that is much too important to leave to architects and investors and bankers and builders. We must all learn and engage in the policy of earth-scaping and approach it very intentionally, and wisely.

(Photo: the view of our sitting area as seen from the dining area. looking south)