Parquet Panic and the Scent of Esche: How I Lost my Mind and Found the Perfect Floor

There's a particular kind of madness that strikes the design-obsessed when they buy a house. A slow, creeping delirium that begins with words like “just paint” and ends with you comparing twelve near-identical shades of warm neutral at 1 a.m. on a Tuesday.

For me, it was the floor. More precisely, the carpet. A heinous grey woolly expanse that haunted the top floor of the new house. It had seen things. It had absorbed things. Even the cats, Dex and Floyd, loved it a little too much.

Enter the Spiral of Perfection

Now, if you're a normal person, you walk into a showroom, pick a floor, and move on. But I am not a normal person. I'm a perfectionist, design enthusiast, and deeply suspicious of anything with visible yellow undertones. Oak was out. Walnut too moody. Bamboo too trendy yoga studio in Berlin. I wanted timeless, not-too-rustic, not too slick. Just the perfect fit.

Parquet began as a luxury for French palaces in the 17th century as intricate wooden mosaics that declared wealth and refinement. Now here I was, centuries later, carrying on that tradition of obsessive wood-grain inspection, albeit with significantly less royal budget and courtly titles.

What complicated matters even further: our doors. These glorious, raw-looking wooden doors stained in that unpredictable way that shifts with the light. They are very popular in the UK where I spent a large chunk of my life. Beautiful, yes. But also a colour wildcard. Every parquet wood I liked in isolation suddenly clashed with them.

What a disaster it would've been to get this wrong. You don't want a floor fighting with your doors.

I became… obsessed.

The Great Parquet Pilgrimage

I drove across Luxembourg for months. I crossed borders. I sniffed sample planks like a sommelier. Daniel, my partner, followed along. We were on tour on weekends and evenings. He nodded thoughtfully and occasionally whispered, "This one's nice, no?" only to receive my blank stare because that one was, obviously, far too warm, or cold, or stripey, or dead-looking.

Some showroom staff knew us already by name. Others sighed audibly when we entered. My quest had become, let’s say - slightly unhinged - in a region where parquet is still seen as unpractical. Tiles and laminate rule supreme here: robust, easy to clean, low drama.

The region spanning Luxembourg, Saarland, Eifel, Wallonia, and Lothringen reflects its pragmatic past: mining, farming, steel industry. Beauty came second. The post-war generation embraced practical materials that could take a beating and didn’t require polishing. And that mindset still clings to local culture.

But some still believe in wood underfoot.

When You Know, You Know

We were weeks in and I began to wonder if the perfect floor even existed or if I had simply lost my mind. Possibly both.

It happened on a Tuesday, of course. But there it was: Individually selected ash planks (Esche). Softly contrasting grain. Slightly smoked, not scorched. Matte but not dusty. A warm grey-brown that looked like it had lived a little. My hands tingled. This was it.

At around 200€/m2, it wasn't cheap. But then again, neither was therapy. And this floor healed something primal.

Pandemic Be Damned

Despite the chaos of 2020, the carpet went. We pried it up with ceremonial flair, discovering decades of dust, questionable cable routing, and possibly a few mummified spiders and paperclips. And under it all, the skeleton of a home waiting to exhale.

The Esche went in. Even the builders admitted it was unusually beautiful (before grumbling about my refusal to let them glue the skirting boards: "Schrauben bitte, danke.")

Lesson: Never let anyone glue your skirting boards. Screws are reversible. Screws are freedom.

What I Learned Along the Way

The journey taught me that not all parquet is created equal. Thickness matters more than most people realize, and cheap parquet that can't be sanded and refinished is nothing but a false economy waiting to disappoint you years down the line.

I also discovered the cardinal rule of never trusting showroom lighting; those perfectly lit displays lie with the confidence of a used car salesman. Always take samples home and live with them in your actual space, watching how they change throughout the day and light.

Our pets, particularly the cats, staged a full protest against the carpet's removal, but they eventually forgave us when they discovered the superior acoustics for their midnight Olympic sprinting events.

I also learned that skirting boards are where builders inevitably try to cut corners. Don't let them get away with it. Insist on screws, not glue, because screws mean freedom and the ability to change your mind later.

And perhaps most importantly, spending more on something you use every day isn't indulgence, it's wise. Your feet, your sanity, and your soul will thank you for it.

The Aftermath

Today, when I walk barefoot across that floor, I feel joy. Calm. The space is transformed. Light dances differently. The room exhales. Even the cats have come around (see left lower corner:-)

If I had to do it again, I'd only change one thing: I would trust my obsession sooner.

Perfectionism has its price. But so does settling. And between those two, I'd rather be the woman on her hands and knees in a showroom holding a wooden plank up to the light like it's a Fabergé egg, whispering, "Yes. This one speaks to me."

Because in the end, good design isn't just visual. It's visceral.

written by Helen M. Krauss

Prussian Blues, Luxembourg Greys

When we bought the house, the back facade was engulfed in ivy. Romantic in the way a Brontë novel is romantic: beautiful and quietly plotting your demise. It crept, tugged at mortar, and scaled all 13 metres to the roof with the stamina of a tax inspector. We tried cuts, the ivy asked for extensions. After multiple rounds of scaffolding to battle the ivy, we finally opted for complete removal and professional facade restoration. An arborist muttered that ivy gets more aggressive with age and suggested our plant might be as old as the house (1870), which is to say, older than my patience. That was the moment the dream of “ivy is so romantic and surely a sustainable home to numerous birds” gave way to new plaster, new paint, new plan, no bird mess on the terrace anymore. And if we were repainting, why not reconsider the colour as well?

Notting Hill in my head, Luxembourg outside the window

The house had been a very pale blue with white frames. Think Notting Hill in London. I checked with Little Greene’s historical palette and Farrow & Ball’s beautiful pastels. The painting company produced 1 x 1 metre test boards and I pinned them to the facade like modern art. The postman developed opinions. The neighbours ran an informal poll.

Two finalists emerged: Little Greene’s Pale Berlin and a Caparol shade called Arctic Blue.

Pale Berlin has that Regency clarity that comes from Prussian Blue. The colour story is irresistible: Prussian Blue was discovered in Berlin by accident in 1704, a turning point in pigment history because it was stable and comparatively affordable. You see it everywhere, from the dials on Big Ben to Brunswick Green (when mixed with Chrome Yellow). Mix it with Lead White and the slight yellow bias of the white tips the blue a little green. That’s how you land on the quietly elegant pale blue Little Greene “Pale Berlin 258.”

I watched those boards through sun, gloom, rain, and that special grey that parks over Luxembourg for days. Arctic Blue won. Clear without being candylike, fresh in bad weather, calm in bright sun. Strong enough to read as blue from the street, restrained enough not to shout at the neighbours. Colour, done.

Now for the paint itself.

Paints: Dispersion versus silicate

The painters kept asking whether we wanted Dispersionsfarbe. In English that’s emulsion or dispersion paint: perfectly fine on many facades, easy to apply, abundant choice. There are also silicone resin paints, popular because they shed water while allowing some vapour movement. A bit like putting rubber on a facade, maybe suitable for a cube where it gives some much needed texture.

And then there is the mineral option: silicate paint. This is where my heart starts beating with interest.

Silicate paint uses liquid potassium silicate as the binder. Instead of forming a plastic film, it chemically bonds to mineral substrates in a process Keim calls silicification. The result is a genuinely breathable, mineral-matte surface that doesn’t blister, peel, or suffocate old render. Colour stays stable for ages because the pigments are mineral and do not throw a tantrum under UV. Algae are less interested. Fire is unimpressed.

There is a catch. It wants proper preparation, the right primer, and a professional who can read technical data sheets without blinking. And it is not the cheapest date in the paint aisle.

But when done properly, it lasts decades, not seasons.

There is something telling about how we've normalized the disposable in construction. We accept that paint should peel and blister every few years, that facades should look tired after a decade. We've trained ourselves to see planned obsolescence as normal, even in something as permanent as our homes. But silicate paint doesn't play that game. It bonds at the molecular level and becomes part of the wall itself.

It's architecture that commits to the long term, a radical concept in a (construction) culture increasingly built around exit strategies.  

Why KEIM Silicate Paint

If you go down the silicate route, you might as well choose the inventor or as the painter put it: the Rolls Royce of paints. KEIM has been making mineral paints since 1878. Their systems are beautifully engineered, unapologetically exacting, and yes, pricier. The reward is longevity and that unmistakable mineral look that never feels plasticky or chalky. Grand buildings (even the White House in Washington!) trust it for a reason.

The process has more steps than normal paints: assess the substrate, repair with mineral materials where needed, use the KEIM primer that suits the base, then apply base and finish from the same system so the chemistry actually bonds. If your painter tries to skip a step, smile sweetly and remove the roller.

Could we get the exact Arctic Blue in KEIM? Of course. They tint with accuracy. So we kept our London-in-my-head blue, but in a paint that behaves like stone. White window frames stayed white. It is a classic because it works: crisp against the blue, serene in bad weather, sunny without looking like a gelato parlour.

Lessons from a Woman Obsessed with Test Boards

Test boards are the only way to make an informed decision. Move them around and look at them at unglamorous hours: morning glare, midday sun light, overcast sulk, drizzle, and that forgiving golden hour. Light is half the colour. Context does the rest. The same blue will look differently against slate, brick, zinc, and the neighbour’s facade colour; ours needed to sing with slate and avoid antagonising a quiet street.

Old houses prefer minerals to plastic, so let them breathe. Budget for scaffolding, then double it if ivy has colonised your life, then you will have to get the facade plastered. We opted for Keim plaster as well, but that’s another story.

Choose a system, because with silicate paints the primer and topcoats are a family and mixing brands invites drama. Expect extra steps. KEIM is fussy for good reason. The result is durability measured in decades, not diary entries.

Standing back from those test boards pinned to our facade like modern art, I realized we were conducting a small rebellion against the beige and grey and the newest brownish-purple trend. Every developer's brochure promises "timeless elegance", but what they deliver is mediocrity with surfaces that age badly, colours that fade, materials that give up.

Choosing Arctic Blue in KEIM wasn't just picking paint. It was insisting that permanence still matters in a world increasingly designed for replacement.

Final Thought

Paint is not just paint. It’s a decision about how your house breathes and weathers, and how it speaks to the street. We kept the romance of blue and white, but traded sentimentality for science where it mattered. If you want the short version: pick your blue slowly, pick your paint wisely, and do not negotiate with ivy.

written by Helen M. Krauss

“Packing Them In”: A Short Cultural History of Density

Why today's approach to housing density misses the lessons of centuries.

We’ve heard the sermon by now:

Density is good. It’s sustainable. It saves land. It prevents urban sprawl. It encourages neighbourly interactions, public transport, shared infrastructure. And when done well, it can indeed be a triumph of urban design. Think of the historic cores of Florence or Lisbon.

But then there’s modern density.

The kind that slips in under the banner of “smart growth” and “vibrant communities”, only to materialize as a few dozen small flats wedged into what used to be a family home with garden, character, and breathing space. The kind where you start hearing every single cough, argument, and phone notification from next door. The kind where public space becomes private smoking territory, and staircases turn into daily theatre.

Somewhere between Vitruvius, the famous Roman architect, and value engineering, something went very wrong.

To understand where today's density goes wrong, we need to look at where historical density got it right.

A Brief History of Living Close

Let’s be clear: humans have lived densely for millennia. Ancient cities were tightly packed. Medieval towns were rabbit warrens of overlapping lives. In many ways, we’re wired for proximity, it’s where culture happens. Where the market buzzes, the festival spills into the street, and ideas rub elbows with one another. Density, in theory, is not the problem.

But in historic high-density environments, craft met constraint. Narrow alleyways gave way to beautiful courtyards. Buildings touched, but they were lovingly detailed. Streets bustled, but were scaled to humans, not delivery vans. The density was social, architectural, and artisanal. Not just numerical.

Density, the old-fashioned way. Tight quarters, but with restraint and respect.

What we see today is something completely different: a soulless spreadsheet density.

Take, for example, the recent developments here in Luxembourg, where single-family homes were replaced by apartment buildings with lots of small apartments. The developer's brochure calls it “luxury urban living”. The neighbours call it something else entirely. This isn't just a housing solution, it's a cultural imposition.

Measured in units per hectare, not quality per square metre. A top-down policy logic that says “add housing”, without stopping to ask what kind of housing, for whom, in what kind of cultural fabric?

Density vs. Dignity

In Luxembourg, as in many parts of Europe, the solution to housing shortages has been to densify, especially in town and village centres. That means knocking down older homes, slicing up gardens, and putting up apartment blocks in places where the streets were never meant to absorb them.

But we might ask: what kind of future are we implanting?

Because density, if not culturally calibrated, creates tension. Not always the creative kind.

In a country where politeness isn’t exactly an Olympic sport, where noise tolerance is low, but building ambition is high, crowding people into tighter quarters doesn’t magically produce urbanity.

It produces friction. Frustration. And more “for sale” signs from those who can afford to flee.

And if the town or village core becomes the default location for this kind of urban pressure, if the old houses and tight lanes are endlessly re-divided and re-coded, then density becomes just another word for dumping.

Lessons from the Past (That We're Ignoring)

The best historical densities didn’t just “fit more people.” They built entire cultures of cohabitation. Shared wells. Arcades. Covered passages. Passive cooling. Shade. Ornament. Large gardens visible from the street. There was density, but with lots of advantages and quality of life.

And crucially: there was a social contract. Behavioural norms. Town planning rooted in how people actually lived, not just what a developer could squeeze in with a rubber-stamp permit and a traffic flow Diagramme.

This social contract wasn't just implicit, it was often codified in local customs, guild regulations, and community expectations. Neighbours knew when to be quiet, when communal spaces could be used for private purposes, and how to negotiate the inevitable frictions of proximity. These weren't just buildings close together; they were communities designed for sustainable coexistence over generations.

In a nutshell: People knew how to behave, and this cannot often said for people living close together these days.

Today, we skip the soft parts. We build for headcount, not hospitality. For ROI, not rhythm. Then we act surprised when people feel overwhelmed, boxed in, irritated, or simply leave.

Welcome to spreadsheet urbanism. Geometry: perfect. Humanity: optional.

Final Thoughts: Build Closer, But Build Better

Density isn’t the enemy. But mediocrity design and thought is.

And density without creative design, without the cultural infrastructure that makes close living humane, is simply just one thing: crowding and overcrowding.

Let’s not confuse tight spacing with smart planning.

And let’s stop pretending that stuffing old villages or town centres with flats is automatically progress.

Sometimes it's just a failure of imagination, a lack of understanding of human nature, of cultural understanding, and of long-term thinking.

The real challenge isn't “packing”more people in. It's creating spaces where proximity fosters community rather than conflict, where density enhances rather than diminishes.

Better urban planning would make Luxembourg special. And it is a shame to watch the old adage that money can’t buy imagination.

written by Helen M. Krauss

Why Great Architecture Feels Like Falling in Love: The Neuroscience of Design

We talk about cities we love. We “fall for” a house. We say we "feel at home" in certain places, as if they emotionally hold us. But what if that’s not just poetic language?

What if the way we react to great architecture isn’t metaphorically like love, but biochemically, neurologically, viscerally the real deal?

Science Explains “Architectural Chemistry”

Studies in neuroaesthetics have found that viewing beautiful architecture activates the same reward centers in the brain as looking at the face of someone you're in love with. Dopamine floods in. Pleasure. Anticipation. Emotional resonance. Some buildings make your brain light up like a teenage crush.

I knew I was in trouble the moment I walked into the Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna. It wasn’t just the riot of colour or the whimsical lines, it was a physical response. My heartbeat changed. My feet slowed. Gaudí’s buildings in Barcelona had the same effect. Every single one. I couldn’t walk past them without stopping like someone who’s just locked eyes with a former lover. Architecture, it turns out, can flirt.

And it's not just dopamine. Oxytocin, our trusty bonding hormone, gets triggered by environments that feel familiar, intimate, safe. That sense of warmth in a well-proportioned room with human-scale elements and natural textures? It’s not just taste. It’s chemistry.

A good example for this is my ongoing love affair with Blackheath London. The traditional village, not changed in the last 200 years and the Heath, a perfect combination of human scale and green expansion. One of the most perfect places to live in London.

Summer stillness on the Heath: Blackheath’s iconic church catches the sun, while Georgian façades quietly supervise the edge of the Heath.

When I first read Semir Zeki’s research on how beautiful visuals trigger the same brain areas as romantic love, it explained a lot. Like why I literally gasp at the sight of Jugendstil facades. Why I linger near Jugendstil or Art Deco zement tiles and start photographing random doorways. Why my heart rate changes around terrazzo floors and well-aged slate roofs. It’s not a design preference, it’s an emotional reaction.

Endorphins and serotonin chime in too: we feel calmer, happier, even euphoric in spaces that are bathed in natural light, filled with greenery, and designed with biophilic or humanistic elements. Add a touch of curved forms, a hint of ornamentation, some stucco. maybe some tactile stone, and the body sighs with relief.

In a world of white cubicles and soulless glass boxes, great design is a drug. And yes, some buildings get us high.

Signs You’re Architecturally Smitten

You photograph doorknobs or wooden doors (always happens to me in Maastricht). You slow down to touch walls. You start wondering if anyone would notice if you lay down on the floor just to look at the ceiling. In short: your body knows before your brain catches up.

And sometimes, that tingling sense of “yes” is your nervous system whispering: this is good design.

Carved wood, ironwork, and the quiet authority of an entrance that’s seen centuries come and go. Somewhere in Maastricht.

Falling in Love for Places

People don’t just like places. They attach to them. Environmental psychologists even have a term for it: place attachment. It’s the emotional bond between a person and a meaningful environment, one that evokes belonging, identity, even longing.

In this context, calling it love isn’t an exaggeration. People cry when a beloved church burns down (Notre-Dame is an example). They weep with joy at the first glimpse of a childhood home. They speak of cities the way poets speak of lovers, with yearning, frustration, intimacy, and awe.

I’ve fallen in love with Jugendstil houses, with their generous facades, their playful stucco, their terrazzo floors, high ceilings crowned with plaster flourishes. I’ve swooned over handcrafted wooden doors in Paris and Metz, over well-aged slate roofs that seem to carry memory in their layers. And I’ve fallen out of love too: with Bauhaus minimalism, with blank facades that give me the same emotional feedback as a voicemail robot.

In some cases, architects themselves describe the first encounter with a building in romantic terms: love at first sight. A spark. A resonance. A sense of having found something that strikes a cord within yourself.

Resonance: Spaces That Speak

Philosophers have long mused that beauty is a form of truth we feel in the body.

For Alberto Pérez-Gómez, architecture at its best reveals something real through a deeply sensual experience, almost erotic in its intensity. Hartmut Rosa would call it resonance.

Resonance means the world answers back. It’s the opposite of alienation. And that’s what great architecture does: it answers us. It doesn’t just exist; it responds. It meets us with form, light, scale, rhythm. And when it does, we don’t just feel admiration. We feel relationship.

Some environments trigger measurable changes: Semir Zeki’s fMRI studies show that beautiful architecture lights up the same neural pathways as romantic affection. Other research suggests that even short exposure to biophilic design, i.e. natural textures, organic shapes, can reduce cortisol, elevate serotonin, and increase cognitive function.

In short, good design doesn't just look nice. It makes us better humans.

The Takeaway: Love Harder. Design Better.

No, a building won’t bring you soup when you're sick. But it might bring you peace, or meaning, contentment, or that unnameable surge of rightness that makes your chest ache and your eyes glisten. Bliss.

Architecture, like love, is about presence. It’s about care. About showing up with intention, again and again. And when done right, it doesn’t just shelter us. It makes us happy.

Next time you feel those butterflies, trust them. That building might be trying to tell you something about what good design actually means.

written by Helen M. Krauss

Architecture and Neuroscience: When Buildings Make Your Heart Race

That flutter when you round a corner and spot a Jugendstil façade? The way your feet slow near a handcrafted wooden door? Your body knows something your mind is only just catching up to.

Falling for architecture isn’t just a metaphor. It’s neuroscience. The same brain regions that fire when you’re in love also light up for beautiful design. Dopamine floods in. Oxytocin follows. Your nervous system doesn’t distinguish between a gorgeous building and a gorgeous person.

Great design isn’t just aesthetics. It’s chemistry.

Read more: Why Great Architecture Feels Like Falling in Love – The Neuroscience of Design

The Architecture of Protection: Renovating in Luxembourg without Legal Nightmares

Beautiful spaces need strong foundations and legal ones matter most. As a former lawyer I thought I knew the terrain. Luxembourg taught me otherwise. I found myself in a system shaped by the Napoleonic legacy, where certain contracts don’t simply “end”, they often require a judge. The lesson? Expertise travels badly across borders.

The best renovations aren’t just built on design; they’re built on paperwork that holds: bulletproof documentation, quotes that read like instructions, and clear emails that fix facts in time.

Know the landscape before you start.

Good design isn’t just what you see. It's what you do to protect it.

Read the blueprint: Legal Pitfalls When Renovating in Luxembourg + How to Avoid Disputes Before They Start

written by Helen M. Krauss

When There’s No Skin in the Game, There’s No Pride in the Product!

What Happens When Developers Build, Profit, and Disappear

In ancient Babylon, builders paid with their lives if their homes collapsed or did not work as promised.

In the present they just blame the commune or the buyer or bad luck.

From stalled construction sites to luxury flats developers wouldn’t dare live in, this piece explores what happens when those who shape our cities aren’t expected to stick around.

Because if there’s no skin in the game, there’s no real care, no long-term thinking, and certainly no architectural soul.

Read the full post →

written by Helen M. Krauss

Curves, Colour, and Rebellion: A Love Letter to Gaudí and Hundertwasser

Let me start with a confession: I don't like cubes. I don't trust them. I don't trust buildings that look like they've been extruded from an Excel spreadsheet. The kind of architecture that screams efficiency, that forces buildings into right angles and your spirit into resignation.

Enter Antoni Gaudí and Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

Two wild minds. Two heretics in the Church of Straight Lines. Saints of Colour. Apostles of Curve. Proof that buildings can feel alive, and make you feel alive, too.

It's hard to overstate how much these two shaped my sense of what's possible. Gaudí's Sagrada Família - part forest, part dream, part cosmic joke - made me feel something I rarely associate with architecture: awe. Not the cold, academic kind. But that warm, childlike wonder that makes you forget time and start looking for secret doors. I don't remember the guide's words. I remember the light.

Sagrada Família, Barcelona (Started 1882 – ongoing): part cathedral, part forest, part fever dream. More than a basilica, it’s a vertical poem in stone. Gaudí’s unfinished masterpiece continues to evolve like a living organism.

Hundertwasser, on the other hand, was a visual revolution wrapped in a very opinionated Austrian. He hated the grid. He hated uniformity. He thought straight lines were the Devil's work, and I'm not sure he was wrong.

His buildings look like they sprouted from the earth after a particularly inspired thunderstorm. They have windows like eyes. Colours that shout. Roofs with trees. They laugh at our zoning laws.

When I first saw the Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna, I felt a kind of fury. Why don't we all live like this? Why is beauty considered an indulgence, rather than a birthright? Why do developers act like joy is optional?

Hundertwasserhaus, Vienna (1983–1985): An explosion of colour, trees, and architectural joy in the heart of Vienna. Hundertwasser’s answer to monotony and grid tyranny.

KunstHausWien, Vienna (1989–1991): A former factory reborn under Hundertwasser’s vision. Uneven floors, wild walls, and unapologetic whimsy, now a museum celebrating his legacy. Walls wiggle, windows wink, and colour riots across the surface. Hundertwasser’s manifesto made solid.

The Epidemic of Aesthetic Poverty

We are living in an epidemic of aesthetic poverty. No matter how advanced our technology becomes, we are still putting people into boxes. Soulless cubes. Concrete blocks. Row upon row of Bauhaus bunkers built not to inspire but to extract value.

I know, I know. Bauhaus has its defenders. Form follows function, they say. But let's be honest, most of the time, function follows finance. And the result? A cityscape designed by accountants. Rational, yes. But also ruthless. It's architecture as austerity.

Last month, I walked through a new housing development in Luxembourg. Identical units. Identical driveways. Identical lives, presumably. The only variation was the house numbers. I felt a physical sadness, not just for the residents, but for what we've accepted as normal. When did we decide that beauty was frivolous? That wonder was wasteful?

Meanwhile, Gaudí was out there bending stone like it was ribbon, turning chimneys into sculpture. Hundertwasser was preaching about window rights and tree tenants, demanding beauty with the ferocity of a prophet. They weren't just building. They were rebelling.

This undulating façade still stuns over a century later. Gaudí sculpted architecture like it was clay — with rhythm, not rules.

When faith meets funk: Hundertwasser’s take on sacred space. Holy, human, and gloriously defiant.

Sagrada Família up close: not just a structure, but a stone symphony of imagination, stubbornness, and spiritual rebellion.

What We've Done Since

And what have we done since?

Glass. Steel. Beige. We've sanitised our cities to the point of spiritual malnourishment. We've created neighbourhoods that could be anywhere, and therefore belong nowhere.

This is not a nostalgic longing for Fairy Tales. This is a reminder that architecture is not just about shelter.

When done right, it can elevate the mundane into the magical. It can make you pause. Breathe. Wonder.

Gaudí and Hundertwasser remind us that the rules are not fixed. That there is always another way to build. Another way to live. A wilder, softer, greener, braver way.

What This Means for Us

So what does this rebellion look like in practice? It means seeking out architects who understand that curves aren't just aesthetic choices, they're emotional ones.

It means choosing homes with character over convenience, supporting local builders who care about craftsmanship, not just completion dates.

It means refusing to accept that beauty is a luxury when it's actually a necessity.

It means asking: Does this space make me feel something? Does it honour the human need for wonder?

So here's to curves. To colour. And here's to never trusting a building that doesn't make you feel something. If it doesn't move the soul, start again with a sketch, and absolutely no ruler.

Written by Helen M. Krauss

Camillo Sitte and the Case for Complexity: Why Your Brain Prefers Winding Streets Over Wide Open Nothingness

There’s a strange little thing that happens when you walk through certain places. You turn a corner. You stop. You linger. Not because the signage tells you to. But because the space invites you. Makes you curious to explore.

It’s not the café. It’s not the cathedral. It’s the composition. An example is the small moselle town of Remich in Luxembourg: The old centre has small little openings and winding tiny footpaths between houses. They pique your interest, you feel the impulse to explore and find out where the path leads. Irresistible.

Camillo Sitte (1843 - 1903), the Austrian urban planner with more common sense than most modern zoning boards combined, understood that.

Back in 1889, he wrote “Der Städtebau nach seinen künstlerischen Grundsätzen” (“City Building According to its Artistic Fundamentals”) and argued, quite radically, for his time, that cities should be designed like art, not spreadsheets.

Walk through most new developments in Luxembourg (or anywhere else where the planning software and developers get more say than the people).

What do you see?

Vast spaces. Flat façades. Identikit balconies, doors and garages. Colours mostly white and grey. A tragic excess of “rational layout.” It’s not offensive. But it’s not beautiful either. It’s just... there.

And as Sitte might have said: beauty rarely comes from “just there.”

Aesthetic Undercomplexity - Or Why Bland Hurts

Sitte didn’t use the phrase “ästhetische Unterkomplexität” himself, that came later, but he would have nodded in grim agreement and everything he wrote was a rejection of it.

He believed that when we strip cities of visual richness, variation, and spatial rhythm, we’re not simplifying, we’re impoverishing.

The plazas and streets he admired weren’t efficient. They were emotionally intelligent.

Irregular. Enclosed. Multi-perspectival. They played with light, surprise, and scale. They created places where people actually wanted to pause, to stay, to belong.

That's why his body of work speaks to me. I lived in quite a few places, and the ones which stuck in my mind and still fill me with longing sometimes, are the ones with aesthetic layering, with delicious visual complexity.

They hold your attention in a curious way, they give your mind space to think while anchored by buildings, like for instance, the Heath in Blackheath Village, London. The village for intimacy, cosiness, human scale, and the heath to expand your mind. All within a bustling city.

I believe, you know that a place works when you live there for years and years and still it touches and delights you. 

Compare that to today’s planning: functional rectangles with generous parking and zero soul.

Further, mixed use according to a PAG in Luxembourg also often means in practice: the bakery and the yoga studio share a concrete wall in a building that looks like a converted insurance office. Interspersed with Bauhaus style bland residences. People come and go, but no one ever stays.

The Science Backs Sitte Up

Modern neuroscience research agrees with Sitte. Our brains are wired to respond to complexity, not chaos, but structured variation.

Environments with texture, depth, and contrast stimulate cognitive activity and emotional well-being. Flatness, uniformity, repetition? That’s how you drain a person’s spirit without saying a single word.

No wonder people flee the village core the moment it’s filled with new “units.” The charm evaporates. And nobody wants to live inside an Excel file.

From Vienna to the PAG

It’s curious, really. Sitte was writing in Vienna, a city that still carries layers of old urban intelligence in its bones. But his insights land sharply here in Luxembourg too, especially in how village centres are being “densified.”

I look out from my own house and see what’s coming. Not bad intentions. Just bad proportions. The idea that function alone is enough to create place.

We all have walked streets that work. They’re not accidents. They’re compositions. Spatial symphonies. And Sitte understood that and could compose the music.

Final Thought: Complexity Is Not a Flaw

We don’t need more diagrams. We don’t need more Bauhaus architecture. We need more delight.

Camillo Sitte knew that beauty wasn’t a luxury. It was the organising principle. Without it, cities may function, but they will never sing.

And honestly, when was the last time a zoning plan gave you goosebumps?

written by Helen M. Krauss

A New Roof: Slate, Supervision, and A Fear of Heights

There’s something humbling about realising your house is taller than you thought. Thirteen metres, to be exact, from ground to rooftop on the gable side (Giebelseite, if I am being technical). Not that I’d measured it before. It was just... our house. You live inside it, not on top of it. Until you suddenly have to.

I only became intimately acquainted with its full height when scaffolding arrived. Poles, platforms, metallic clinks at 7 a.m., and the peculiar intimacy of strangers peering into your upstairs windows while you’re still making coffee. The roofers had promised a two-week job - efficient, clean, no fuss. They said it with the confidence of men who assumed we wouldn’t be checking.

And to be fair, who checks a roof? Most people don’t. That’s sort of the point of a roof: you forget about it, until it fails.

But I didn’t forget. I climbed. I looked. I photographed. I had an expert on call. And I quickly discovered that our gable side, high, hidden, and far from street view, was being treated like a blind spot. A perfect place, in other words, to skip a few steps, cut a few corners, and assume no one would notice.

They were wrong.

Because here’s what I’d learned from other renovations: just because something is out of sight doesn’t mean it should be out of mind. Especially when it’s holding the house together.

So I did what any design-obsessed, renovation-weary homeowner would do: I took a holiday. But not the relaxing kind. The kind where you spend your mornings documenting zinc flashing and your afternoons decoding builder small talk. I was there every day - balancing on a blank with a clipboard and clenched jaw.  And slowly, the work began to match the promise.

Also, I should mention: I have a mild fear of heights. That fear did not appreciate climbing scaffoldings at seven in the morning to peer over details with a cup of coffee in one hand and my phone camera in the other. But necessity is a powerful motivator.

By week three, the two-week project had become five. But something else had changed, too: the roof was beginning to look… right. Precise. Like it belonged not just on any house, but on this house, with its tall silhouette, its quiet grandeur, and its long memory.

And after all the scaffolding, setbacks, and sideways glances, our house was finally getting the roof it deserved.

Slate: A Short Cultural History (and a Subtle Status Marker)

Slate is one of those materials that doesn’t shout. It doesn’t gleam like zinc or flash like copper. But its dignity is unmistakable. For centuries, slate has covered everything from grand civic buildings to quiet mountain homes. It’s the roof you choose when you want something to last, and when you’re not trying to impress anyone but yourself.

Historically, slate was expensive to quarry, difficult to transport, and even trickier to install. Which is why it was often found on properties that mattered - architecturally, symbolically, or socially. In much of Europe, a slate roof was a mark of distinction.

For this roof I opted for high-quality natural slate from Spain, dense, dark grey, smooth-textured, and with excellent longevity. Compared to softer varieties from other regions, this one ages gracefully and holds up beautifully in Luxembourg’s climate.

Which brings us to the 1960s and ’70s. A time of mass construction and minimal budgets. Eternit, that eternally problematic fibre cement product, was everywhere. Light, cheap, and often riddled with asbestos, it became the default choice for developers and budget-conscious owners alike. Our house, like many others, had been “updated” in that era with a practical but joyless grey Eternit roof. Function? Yes. Charm? Not exactly.

So when the time came to replace it, I didn’t just want new tiles. I wanted to restore a level of grandeur. I wanted slate.

The Details They Don’t Tell You

Here’s something most roofing companies won’t advertise: the devil is in the details. And if you don’t ask about them, you won’t get them.

You’d think a new roof quote would include information about the metalwork - what material is being used for gutters, downpipes, and flashing. But no. Unless you insist, you’ll get the cheapest possible option. Aluminium, or worse. Thin, generic, and guaranteed to corrode or buckle within a few years.

I recommend Rheinzink. And proper “Spenglerarbeiten”. No shortcuts.

And I learned something else: most sample tiles they show you are meaningless unless you understand what you’re looking at. There’s Spanish slate, Brazilian slate, Welsh slate, all wildly different in durability, colour, porosity, and finish. Some age gracefully. Others age like milk.

Slate, to its credit, also wins on sustainability. It’s a natural material, non-toxic, recyclable, and incredibly long-lived, often 80 to 100 years or more. Compare that to synthetic options or fibre cement with 15–30 year lifespans and it’s clear: slate isn’t just beautiful, it’s ecological common sense.

So I did the research. I wandered the neighbourhood. I photographed good roofs. I found examples I liked and referenced them in every conversation. If the roofer looked surprised, that was a good sign. It meant I was on the right track.

Supervise. Supervise. Supervise.

There’s no polite way to say it: our roofers were lazy. Not catastrophically bad, just complacent. They assumed the height of the house would protect them from scrutiny. They weren’t prepared for homeowners with a camera, a daily checklist, and the preparedness to call an expert if needed.

I caught small things: uneven edges, inconsistent spacing, rushed detailing around the dormers. And I flagged them all. Calmly, professionally and persistently.

And then there were the comic moments.

Me or my husband showing up out of nowhere, smiling brightly and offering coffee, while they hastily tried to cover up some slapdash shortcut they’d hoped we wouldn’t notice. Or the way they looked slightly guilty, like children caught drawing on the walls - which, to be fair, they were doing, just with slate.

And on the final day, we stood in front of the house with a bottle of wine and some chocolates, trying to wrap things up graciously. They smiled back, all wide-eyed sincerity, and said: “Wir haben das Maximum für euch rausgeholt.”

We smiled. Froze a little. Perhaps twitched. Because what they meant was: We tried our best for you. But what we heard, standing there in awkward silence, was: we squeezed the maximum out of you. And they did. Imagine the exhaustion after this daily climbing marathon for five weeks!

A Roof Reborn

The state of the roof when we bought the house: old Eternit tiles and in overall bad state.

The finished slate roof doesn’t shout. But it doesn’t need to.

It frames the house with quiet elegance. It reflects the sky in soft, matte blues. It anchors the structure in a way that the old Eternit never could. And it signals to those who care to look, that someone paid attention. That this house was worth it.

Year 2022: The new slate roof in all its glory. What a change and it will hopefully hold for another 100 years.

Yes, it cost more. Yes, it took longer. And yes, it required daily vigilance, an uncanny ability to detect laziness from a distance, and a surprising number of emails about how to put slate on a roof.

But it was worth it.

Because quality always is, especially when it’s attached to a building with soul.

I don’t know what kind of roof it had in 1870. But I know what it has now: one that will last, one that belongs, and one that finally matches the architectural soul of the building beneath it.

Final Thought: Restoration Requires Care, Respect and Long-term Thinking

A good roof isn’t just protection from the rain. It’s a declaration of care, of values, of design integrity. It’s what happens when you treat a house not as a commodity, but as a story worth preserving.

This approach of demanding quality, respecting character, and thinking long-term, applies to every part of restoration. Whether you’re choosing tiles, plastering walls, or defending a crooked doorway from demolition logic, the philosophy is the same: build with care. Renovate with conscience. And supervise:-)

written by Helen M. Krauss

Get Inspired: Curves, Colour and Rebellion

What if I told you that straight lines are killing our souls?

Two architectural rebels - Gaudí and Hundertwasser - knew this instinctively, bending stone and rules to create buildings that didn't just shelter, they inspired. In our age of aesthetic poverty, their lesson has never been more urgent.

Read the full piece: A Love Letter to Gaudí and Hundertwasser

Skin in the Game: When Developers Build Without Getting Their Hands Dirty

In ancient Babylon, King Hammurabi had a famously clear approach to architectural accountability: if a builder constructed a home that collapsed and killed the owner, the builder was put to death.

Brutal? Absolutely. But effective. Because it ensured one thing: that those who built had a very real stake in the outcome.

Fast forward a few millennia. Developers all over the world still build homes. Just with... fewer consequences.

Profits on Paper, Risk on Us

Here’s the pattern: In the good years, developers make a killing. “Luxury” apartments go up, prices go through the beautifully insulated roof, and the brochures sing about sustainability, harmony, and living well.

But the moment interest rates wobble or materials spike, the chorus changes. Suddenly, it’s the commune’s problem. Or the state’s. Or the buyer’s.

Anyone’s, really, except the person who commissioned the thing in the first place.

It’s a curious business model: socializing risk, privatizing reward.

The result? A landscape dotted with overambitious projects, awkward demolitions, and buildings no one truly stands behind.

Literally. They build them. But they wouldn’t be caught living in them.

The “Luxury” Nobody Wants

Take a walk around your neighbourhood. Count the cranes, the “For Sale” signs, the glint of glass promising prestige.

Now ask: Who are these homes for?

Because they’re certainly not for the people who built them.

Developers, more often than not, live elsewhere. In the charm of an older Jugendstil villa, for instance as one told me with a dreamy smile. And while they may speak in press releases about “creating vibrant communities,” what they’re really creating is exits.

We’ve developed an entire industry of non-participation.

A culture of construction without consequence.

A skyline shaped by those who never intend to inhabit it.

And the consequences are architectural, not just ethical. Poor detailing. Cheap finishes. The same tired white box, scaled up or down depending on zoning.

Buildings that speak in spreadsheets and fall silent when it comes to soul.

So What Would Real Accountability Look Like?

Let’s not bring back Babylonian justice. But what if we revived the spirit behind it?

What if developers actually had skin in the game, not just capital exposure, but lived exposure?

Imagine if: Developers were required to live in one of their buildings for a minimum of five years.

Their compensation was tied not just to sales, but to long-term performance metrics: energy efficiency, resident satisfaction, repair history. A demolition tax discouraged speculative tear-downs unless renovation was demonstrably impossible.

Communes could withhold permits if a developer had unresolved failures elsewhere.

Too radical?

Not really. It’s only radical if you assume that architecture should have no memory.

And that’s exactly the problem.

From Facade to Exit Strategy

This is the unspoken link to our tear-down culture. When developers have no relationship to what they build, no intention to linger, no desire to belong, then demolition becomes strategy.

Cheaper than care. Faster than renovation. Far less personal.

It’s why we see century-old houses bulldozed for half-baked plans. Why façades with texture and rhythm are flattened for beige render and perpetually annoyed balconies. Why so much of what gets built feels hollow, unanchored, and oddly evasive, like it doesn’t want to be here either.

When there’s no skin in the game, there’s no pride in the product.

Just marketing copy. And margin.

It’s Time to Build Differently

We say we care about quality, culture and rootedness.

But when the people shaping our towns treat buildings like flipping stock portfolios, what we end up with isn’t architecture, it’s turnover.

And what we lose isn’t just aesthetics. We lose trust and cohesion. The slow, layered richness that makes a place feel real.

This is a call for responsibility. For developers who don’t just walk away when the concrete sets. Because a city isn’t a brochure. It’s a lived experience.

And if you’re going to build something others are meant to live in, maybe, just maybe, you should be willing to sit in it for a while.

written by Helen M. Krauss

Renovate, Don’t Obliterate

Why Luxembourg Keeps Tearing Down Its Storybook

While we carefully preserve our castles and display our history in museums, ordinary heritage buildings vanish overnight across Luxembourg - replaced by white cubes, hostile balconies, and the vague promise of “prestige living.”

We call it progress.

But it feels more like amnesia with a building permit.

Read the full post to discover what a renovation culture might look like, and why keeping our architectural stories alive matters more than we think.

Read the full post →

written by Helen M. Krauss

The Old House Paradox: Why Tearing Down Is Tearing Us Apart

I stood across the street, watching dust rise where a house used to be.

It wasn’t particularly grand. Not listed. Not the kind of place that would end up in a glossy book on European architecture. But it had charm. Wooden shutters, modest proportions, an old iron railing wrapped in ivy. A house you wouldn’t notice unless you cared. And clearly, nobody did. Because now it’s gone.

In its place: nothing yet. Just churned soil and a developer’s sign promising “Prestige Living”. Prestige, in this case, soon to be rendered in beige render, perforated aluminium, and a strangely hostile number of balconies.Because nothing says “luxurious living” quite like a façade that looks perpetually annoyed.

We demolish quickly and we build quickly. But we lose slowly.

From Façades to Forgetting

Luxembourg has perfected a curious contradiction: we revere our castle ruins while casually signing demolition permits for heritage homes that are perfectly sound. We speak of national identity, of rootedness, of preserving the Luxembourgish language, and then we bulldoze the built evidence of the people who spoke it.

Call it cultural amnesia, paved in granite and LED spotlights.

There was a time when buildings were repaired. Adapted. Reused. But somewhere along the way, preservation became an inconvenience. And demolition? A default.

Walk through towns and village centres today. Count the original buildings. Then count the new white cubes.

The math tells a story, doesn’t it?

What Are We Really Replacing?

In Luxembourg demolition has become the go-to gesture for "improvement." Tear down a villa from the 1930s, possibly with hand-crafted stonework, mature trees, maybe even a story, and replace it with six flats, all priced for investors. The gain is financial. The loss is everything else.

Architecture used to be part of memory. Now it’s just a placeholder until the next build. We are flattening character for yield. And the result?

A landscape that feels newer, taller, shinier and somehow emptier. Like a new smartphone that's somehow less satisfying than the one it replaced, despite the extra camera lenses.

When did we decide that a 1950s villa had nothing to teach us? That a century-old façade had nothing to show us?

The Book Metaphor, or Why Not Every Story Needs a Sequel

Think of buildings as books. Some are classics. They deserve to be preserved, re-read, passed on. Others could use revision: a new foreword, a cleaned-up layout, better margins. But very few need to be pulped.

And yet, that’s how we treat them. Entire buildings tossed aside, as if what they offered - their story, their materials, their place in the streetscape, had no value.

As if beauty and proportion could be reproduced in a 3D BIM file and slapped onto a concrete box. Spoiler: they can’t. That’s like saying you can replace Hemingway with ChatGPT. The words might be there, but something essential is missing.

Elsewhere in Europe, They Chose to Read

Vienna has quietly renovated hundreds of thousands of homes, many still occupied during works, preserving neighbourhoods and affordability alike. In Paris and Bordeaux, architects like Lacaton & Vassal have added space to social housing blocks without evicting a single resident or demolishing a wall.

In Brussels, office towers have been turned into housing with breathtaking speed and minimal carbon cost.

They chose to edit, and not erase what was already there.

And the result? Cities that feel like cities, not PowerPoint decks with balconies and investor brochures that somehow became three-dimensional.

Meanwhile here...

Here, demolition is often speculative. Developers knock down before they know what they’re building. Sometimes before they secure financing. That’s how you end up with half-finished holes in the ground where beautiful buildings used to stand.

Like the Hôtel du Grand Chef in Mondorf, a graceful structure that held both memory and presence. It was partially demolished for a luxury flat project that later stalled. And the new apartments? Not even built.

A Wealthy Country That Demolishes Its Wealth

Luxembourg is one of the richest countries in Europe. It can afford to preserve. It can afford to renovate. And yet, it behaves like a place in a rush to replace, to erase, to sell.

It’s as if we’ve collectively decided that architectural character is the one luxury we can’t afford. We apply for EU heritage status while destroying the ordinary buildings that make our towns liveable.

We talk about housing shortages while letting vacant buildings rot. Or worse: tear them down to build five unaffordable units in their place.

It’s not just short-sighted. It’s absurd.

Demolition, Sitte, and the Aesthetic Undercomplexity of It All

Camillo Sitte once warned against cities becoming too geometrically clean, too orderly, too stripped of layers. He championed the complexity of lived-in space, the richness that comes from history pressing up against the present.

Demolition, especially when done en masse, flattens that complexity. It replaces narrative with neutrality. Texture with efficiency.

In short, it gives us the very aesthetic undercomplexity that Sitte spent his career warning against. And we’re doing it not out of need, but out of habit.

So What Are We Really Preserving?

Preserving a building isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about continuity. It’s about trusting that not everything valuable must be new. That age can mean richness. That imperfection can be beautiful.

When we demolish indiscriminately, we erase the physical proof that someone was here before us, someone who built, lived, planted, repaired, walked the same pavement.

We erase context, continuity and the past.

And it’s not just a personal concern. Across Europe, and now in Luxembourg too, citizens are beginning to push back. The HouseEurope! Initiative, recently launched with support from Luxembourg’s architects, planners, and cultural organisations, calls for exactly this shift: renovation over demolition, care over erasure.

Their message is simple: stop wasting buildings, stop wasting identity, and start seeing the value that’s already there.

Final Thought: What Would a Renovation Culture Look Like?

Imagine if, instead of tearing down and starting over, we chose to see what already exists, really see it. Its weight, its craft and quiet presence on the street.

Imagine a Luxembourg where architects and developers were required to live in what they build. Where investors couldn’t demolish until they proved renovation wasn’t possible. Where our first instinct wasn’t clearance, but care.

Maybe we should measure cities not by what they built and add to their skylines, but by what they choose to keep. By how generously they repair and by what they refuse to throw away.

Because in the end, saving a building saves more than just stone and timber. It saves a story. And maybe, if we’re lucky, our place in it.

written by Helen M. Krauss

Honk If You’re Important: On Cars, Class, and Quiet Status Wars

When we moved to Luxembourg from London, my husband, our modest VW Beetle and I brought with us our own cultural blind spots and a few illusions: that status was subtle, that intelligence and education still counted, and that the car you drove said very little about who you were.

Our dentist in London drove a VW Beetle. So did we. It wasn’t a statement. It was just... a car. Practical, small, occasionally whimsical. Nobody cared. In fact, in certain circles, driving a car at all was slightly gauche.

Luxembourg, as it turns out, disagrees.

The Cult of the Car (And Why Size Still Matters)

There’s a long tradition in Luxembourg, and indeed, across many small or large, status-obsessed nations, of material cues standing in for personal credentials. When people don’t know who you are, they look at what you own. And when they’re not sure what to make of you, they look at your car.

The car is immediate, legible, parked in full view. Unlike your education or career (neither of which is plastered to your garage door), it speaks a language everyone understands. And it tends to speak loudly.

This wasn’t always the case. In post-war Luxembourg, the ultimate status symbol wasn’t necessarily a Porsche, it was land. A large house. A good roof. You climbed the ladder through ownership, not necessarily through chrome.

But over time, as the country grew wealthier, the car became the mobile façade. A rolling résumé. And in villages and towns the driveway became the stage.

Vehicular Theatre

When we arrived in our historic village home, I expected mild curiosity. Maybe even a neighbourly chat about stucco or rain gutters.

What we got was polite distance, almost disdain and a learning curve about unspoken social codes.

Respect, it seemed, was not anchored to the architectural effort. It came down to what was parked out front. Our loyal blue VW Beetle - charming in London - here seemed to signal a lack of ambition. Or worse, a lack of means.

The real revelation came slowly. A sense that certain conversations required different credentials. A raised eyebrow during a casual driveway conversation. A sense that we’d missed a memo everyone else had read.

Eventually, it became clear: we seemed to have failed the local “visual audit” and we seemed to be navigating by the wrong map.

When Sustainability Meets Status Anxiety

We had, until then, clung to our small-car principles. One vehicle, low emissions, minimal footprint. Sustainability in action. A little naïve, perhaps.

But the social signals around us grew too loud to ignore.

We finally bought an SUV, because nothing else said, “Don’t underestimate us” quite so effectively.

It worked. Subtly. Conversations became warmer. The Beetle, though still technically present, had been neutralised. The social dynamic quietly recalibrated.

And with it, any last illusions about sustainability as a community value and my own consistency quietly dissolved. It’s easy to declare sustainability as your core value when it doesn’t cost you socially.

This isn’t unique to Luxembourg, of course. Every place has its codes. London had its own hierarchies. They were just written in different symbols. Private school accents, the right postcodes, using the right words in contexts. At least here, the rules are more …visible and ultimately easier to obtain.

What Drives Us

Of course, none of this is really about cars.

It’s ultimately about architecture. In towns and villages where buildings are no longer expressive, where old houses are stripped of identity and new builds are aggressively neutral, the car becomes the substitute. It performs what the architecture no longer does: it signals value, taste, and place.

We’ve built a world where façades are flattened, homes are anonymised, and silence fills the gaps once held by ornament, eccentricity, or craftsmanship. And in that vacuum, the car roars.

Final Thought: The Quiet Cost of Status

I joke now, of course. That you can have four degrees and a vintage terrazzo floor, but if your car isn’t at least five metres long, you’ll remain firmly in second tier. That you could invent the fountain of youth, but if you park it next to a Dacia, no one’s calling you for brunch.

But behind the humour, there’s something sadder. A social ecosystem where respect is calculated by cubic volume. Where sustainability, though publicly adored, is privately penalised. Where heritage matters less than horsepower. And yet, not all residents follow this pattern. But the pattern is visible, and hard to ignore.

So, the question remains:

In a place where the car often carries more cultural weight than the home, what are we really driving toward? And what does it tell us about the spaces we have created to live in?

written by Helen M. Krauss

The Car Test in Luxembourg: Why Your Vehicle May Be Speaking Louder Than You Are

In some places, your car is just a car. In Luxembourg, it's a résumé, a value statement, and occasionally, a class declaration on four wheels.

When my husband and I first arrived from London with our sensible little and cute Beetle, we had no idea we were committing social self-sabotage. After all, in a city, a small car is practical. Ecological. Even charming. But Luxembourg has its own logic, and it begins at the kerb.

Because here’s the thing no one tells you:

In many Luxembourgish towns and villages, your car will be judged before your house. And before you. No matter your education, your job, or your restoration efforts, if you’re driving something modest, prepare to be quietly downgraded.

It took me a while to realise that respect here isn’t always earned, sometimes, it’s bought or leased.

Want to know what happens when a sociocultural value system gets outsourced to the car dealership?

You might want to read this one:

Honk If You’re Important →

written by Helen M. Krauss

Please Be Seated: A Brief Cultural History of the Bench

I noticed it while sitting on a newly installed bench in the Park Thermal in Mondorf-les-Bains: hard, metallic, and subtly angled to prevent comfort beyond a few minutes. The kind of design that whispers, Yes, you may sit, but don't think about staying. No cushion, no curve, and certainly no generosity.

Benches are strange creatures. Half invitation, half judgment. They wait patiently in parks, train stations, village squares, mute observers of the human condition. We barely notice them until we need them. And when we do, we don’t just rest - we reveal.

A bench is never just a place to sit. It’s a statement. Of design, yes, but also of what we think people deserve in public space. Backrest or not? Wood or metal? Individual seats or collective span? In some cities, benches are ergonomic poems in steel and cedar. In others, they’re narrow, sloped slabs that make sure no one gets too comfortable - or horizontal.

The Romans, as always, got there first. Their exedrae, a stone benches embedded in public forums, offered shade and social surveillance in equal measure. In the Middle Ages, benches were less civic and more ecclesiastical. Cold stone pews lined monastery cloisters, designed to keep the soul upright and the body humble.

Then came the garden bench: baroque, wrought-iron, often wildly uncomfortable. And later, the Victorian promenade bench, long, generous, proudly municipal. A place to see and be seen, but also to rest without guilt.

But somewhere along the way, benches began to shrink. As if generosity in seating became suspicious. Too inviting, and someone might linger too long. Or lie down. Or be poor.

In Luxembourg, particularly in new developments around Kirchberg or Cloche d'Or, benches often appear as reluctant concessions to human need rather than celebrations of public life. The design language is clear: sit, but don’t stay. Rest, but don’t settle.

A good bench says: “You matter enough to pause.” A bad one says: “Don’t get too comfortable.”

We’ve all had the experience: sitting down only to realize you're being watched. Not in that charming pigeons and poetry way, but in the quiet, unsettling sense that this space is already claimed.

And yet, a well-designed bench is perhaps the most honest piece of architecture. It makes no grand claims, conceals no hidden agendas. It simply offers to hold you for a while.

Benches reveal how we treat space, and how we treat each other. They mark generosity or suspicion, care or calculation. And when they’re done well, they do something remarkable: they give shape to slowness. They invite you to exist, quietly, in public.

We often measure cities by their skylines. But maybe we should measure them by their benches, by how generously they invite us to pause, to observe, to belong.

After all, that’s where real life sits.

And if you’re lucky, where it holds your weight, and maybe your thoughts too.

written by Helen M. Krauss

Design by Delight: Camillo Sitte’s Forgotten Wisdom

"Only that which the viewer can see and hold in view has artistic value." (Camillo Sitte, 1843-1903)

Long before urban design was guided by optimization algorithms, Camillo Sitte understood something simple: cities should feel good to walk through.

Not just efficient. Not just zoned. But beautiful, inviting, and a little bit unpredictable.

Today, those principles have been mostly paved over. But Sitte’s insights still shine, especially when you realise that your favourite streets probably don’t follow the rules. They follow rhythm. Texture. Surprise.

Even neuroscience agrees.

Read the full post on why your brain prefers winding streets to modern urbanisme.

written by Helen M. Krauss

How Florence Did It Right: What Historical Density Looked Like Before Cars, Codebooks, and Concrete

Walk through Florence’s historic centre, and you’ll feel it immediately: the density is there, but not suffocating. Narrow streets. Shaded alleys. Buildings pressed shoulder to shoulder, but it never feels too close. There’s intimacy, but also openness. Ornament. Flow.

This is what urban closeness used to mean: green courtyards tucked behind heavy wooden doors, creating mystery and curiosity, shared loggias, ground floors that shift from shop to dwelling to atelier, often in the same building. Density wasn’t imposed. It emerged from life.

No one had to add “community features”. The community was the feature.

Of course, Florence isn’t perfect (they had their fair share of architectural egos). But their density came with creativity, restraint, and deep attention to material, scale, and light.

There’s a reason we still love it centuries later.

Read the full article on modern density and how today’s urban design does not work.

written by Helen M. Krauss

Japanese Philosophy: The Beauty of Broken Things

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” - Hemingway

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, not to hide the cracks, but to honour them. A philosophy that sees damage not as something shameful, but beautiful.

The fracture is the story. The repair is the art.

I think there’s a lesson here for old houses, too.

In a culture obsessed with flawless surfaces and shiny newness, Kintsugi offers a rebellious thought: maybe the crack isn’t the problem. Maybe it’s the point.

Read the full reflection on Kintsugi, hormesis, and what old houses can teach us about resilience.

written by Helen M. Krauss