Work

Rooms and frames

Four chapters of how the practice thinks, then six rooms in Baton Rouge that came out of it.

The porch

In this climate the porch is not a decoration on the front of a plan. It is the room that makes the rest of the house possible in July. Depth matters more than style. A shallow roof reads as trim. Eight feet of shade reads as furniture. I start here because a porch teaches proportion without a speech: the column spacing, the height of the rail, the place a chair can sit out of the rain that comes in sideways. When a house feels harsh, I look at the porch before I look at the paint.

The drawing

I still draw at a table before I trust a screen. A plan is a sequence of arrivals. You come in, you set something down, you turn toward the light, you find the table or the bed or the sink. If that sequence is clumsy, no finish will rescue it. The drawings I keep are ordinary: walls, doors that swing the right way, a window lined up with the one across the house, furniture drawn early so the room cannot pretend to be larger than the table. Photography began as a way to check those drawings after someone had actually lived in them.

The print

A photograph of a room is a measurement made with light. I want the picture to say where you can stand, what the afternoon does, and which object is doing the real work. Flattery is easy and it expires. A print that tells the truth about a cracked plaster wall or a porch in haze is more useful to the next decision, whether that decision is a renovation or simply where to put the chair. The journal is where those prints get a paragraph. The paragraph is part of the work.

The drawer

Order is the same practice at the scale of a hand. A drawer with a job is a small plan: one kind of thing, a front edge you can see, nothing stored on top of the thing you need. I write about this because houses fail in miniature first. The hall fills with shoes, the counter fills with mail, and then the architecture is asked to solve a storage problem it was never shown. Clearing a drawer is not a lifestyle. It is how a room gets its square footage back.

The six projects below are the named work. Each one is a room that had to decide what it was for.

Named work

2019 · Drehr Place, Baton Rouge

The Deep Porch

A Garden District porch lengthened to eight feet so the afternoon has somewhere to sit. The columns stayed. The shade changed.

Brandt Asay on a deep Garden District porch in Baton Rouge, late-afternoon shade under the eave.
Brandt Asay measuring the depth of a porch floor with a tape, columns and live oaks beyond.

2021 · Spain Street, Baton Rouge

Three Rooms in a Line

A shotgun kept its enfilade. The middle room got a real job, and the doors stayed aligned so the house still explains itself in one glance.

Brandt Asay standing in a shotgun house on Spain Street, three rooms aligned through open doors.
Brandt Asay at a table with a plan of three rooms in a line, pencil on tracing paper.

2022 · Southdowns, Baton Rouge

Kitchen Toward the Yard

The sink turned toward the garden. One borrowed window did more than a new square of floor.

Brandt Asay in a Southdowns kitchen, looking out a wide window toward a green yard.
Brandt Asay at a kitchen sink beneath a window, hands on the counter, garden light on the plaster.

2020 · Government Street, Baton Rouge

The Room Above the Shop

A drafting room over a storefront. One long table, tall glass, and a hook by the door for the camera.

Brandt Asay in a studio above a Government Street shop, drawings spread on a long table by tall windows.
Brandt Asay drawing at a long studio table, a camera hanging on a hook beside the window.

2023 · Mid City, Baton Rouge

Shade the Size of a Parking Space

A side yard that was only a setback became a court. One tree, one wall, and a floor that can take the rain.

Brandt Asay in a small planted courtyard beside a Baton Rouge house, one tree and a garden wall.
Brandt Asay kneeling beside a courtyard wall, looking at brick and the shade of a small tree.

2024 · Ogden Park, Baton Rouge

A House Put Back

Less a renovation than a clearing. The plan was already in the bungalow. The work was giving each room its job back.

Brandt Asay in a quiet bungalow living room in Ogden Park, a few objects left in their places.
Brandt Asay sliding a shallow tray into a drawer, the room behind him already put back in order.