If you drive around your town looking
for the best residential addition, you
probably won't find it. That's because a
well-designed addition blends so perfectly
with the original house that the
whole structure looks as if it were built
at one time. I call the result a "seamless
addition."
Seamless design seldom happens by
accident. Pulling it off depends largely
on a number of basic design concepts,
of which the most important are massing,
articulation, rhythm, scale, and
proportion. Experienced architects and
designers consciously use all of these
elements to pull the parts of a building
together.
What Is Massing, Anyway?
When an architect refers to massing,
he or she means the gross shape of a
building, as defined by