I was watching Jamie Oliver doing dome Christmas recipes this week and one of them stood out over something he said at the end:

The recipe was for ‘Frozen grapes, chocolate & grappa’; sexy photo from JamieOliver.com below, and CLICK HERE for the recipe:

The recipe is very simple, 3 ingredients, with 3 tastes that perfectly complement each other and at the end Jamie says:

“If you present this to your friends then you’ll show you really know about food”

We trust Jamie that he knows about food and that if we follow his recipes then we’ll also be party to also knowing about food. We trust Jamie in this regard.

It’s strange but sometimes I feel that clients (and the general public) don’t truly trust architects. Why is this? Are they worried that we’re just going to go bonkers? Interestingly, the link below shows 8 houses where the architect was given complete and total free rein, all of which are stunning:

Solo houses where architects were given carte-blanche via ArchDaily

I think it comes down to architecture as art and that well known saying “I know what I like”. But it seems to be the architect’s role is to push the client a little and to promote an evaluation of what he/she likes or dislikes.

So what I’m going to say next time is simple:

“If you do this it will show that you know about architecture”

Arrogant? Maybe.

Comments welcome.