I’d been doing architecture for what one could think of as, elite clients, with master builders and enough budget to do everything that needed to be done. When I pivoted from those bespoke houses to houses under 700sf – I got a wake-up call. I did not realize how much I would miss: there were no master builders, there were no open budgets, there were no layers of customization details. Functional and spare, I asked for but one joy on each project. And when I didn’t get even that, something collapsed. All of the little boxes, the inequities that small houses tolerate, were getting ticked: they were unaffordable, dull, mediocre… and I had to fight to get good building. But intuitively I was arranging a solution. The only way to right theses inequities was to change EVERYTHING. And when if landed, it was a sketch of the Poche truss. The more I interrogated it the more it answered robust climate and weather considerations with self-shading, naturally shedding precipitation, no breaks in the shell, 2-3X the capacity for insulation and managing thermal flow, 18% of the usual time to install, and half or less the cost of exterior framing material. And because the entire building is shaped in response to the input inquiry, it can do so many of the things my custom details had, without top skill master builders. I am pressing it into building workshops and studios and small houses but what is rising is an interrogation into the very essence of Poche: the space between inside and outside. Of course all buildings do this, what is interesting about Poche is that the entire form is shaped at once, no – develop roof then elevations. In Poche they are intrinsic. And I suspect this is the key to getting joy