Pranks That Won’t Get You Into Trouble

The yellow-painted door of Myers Residence is stuck in the middle of two glass panels extending from floor to ceiling. The bright element appears to be there by mistake; there is no balcony in front of it and nowhere to step out. The door becomes a problem solver—it hides storage and cabinets, provides ventilation, and challenges the composition of the main elevation, which might otherwise feel too rigid. It perplexes both inhabitants and neighbors. An unnecessary element shifts the project’s atmosphere entirely, turning a rational façade into a playful one through a meaningful surplus.

A similar shift happens in the House in Maia, where the drainpipe breaks the deliberate, anonymous simplicity of both façades, running down the center at the front and slipping to the side at the back. It shifts in its gravitational drop to become the handrail protecting the entrance stairs, bringing the city into the domestic space. Painted bright yellow, the ordinary element celebrates its double function. By changing roles, it reveals joy through its ability to be more than one thing at once. Because of that shift, the seemingly normal house winks at you.

These moments suggest that a building can giggle or laugh out loud. At times, one has to look carefully for a plot twist—a subtle joke hidden within the edifice. Buildings can express humor, ambivalence, suavity, and frivolity, but they can also be dead serious. There is a full spectrum, from grave to lightly amusing, to ridiculously funny. This text argues for subtle jokes and joyous inconsistencies, for mistakes that can be celebrated and laughed at, for mischief that does not get one into too much trouble. All of this happens through the most basic part of any building—an architectural element that is slightly off, bizarre, questioning, or cheeky. It is small but proud. It engages the viewer, the visitor, the passerby. It asks to be looked at and deciphered, revealing a compelling narrative. It marks and highlights important qualities, strategies, and possibilities emerging within the discipline.

I call it the mischievous element. Across different dictionaries,¹ mischievous is defined as being able to cause annoyance or trouble. It means irresponsibly playful and is close to wicked, in the sense of exhibiting reckless playfulness. Mischievous implies enjoying tricks and puzzling others. It suggests behaving in a way that is slightly bad but not intended to cause serious harm or damage. All these qualities can be translated into architecture.

The massive fireplace of the House in Origlio occupies the center of the double-height living space with a peculiar outline. Positioned at the intersection of two axes, the stepped volume of the chimney forms a kind of interior façade, treated with the same care and attention as the front face of a building. Two dots and an arched opening compose a grumpy yet surprised face overlooking the living room with disbelief. The room may change wall color, furniture, even families, but the fireplace always retains its character—its expression and blunt central position—quietly disapproving of whatever unfolds around it. Here, mischief is not about excess or role-switching, but about stubborn presence—an element that refuses neutrality.

In the Blackburn House, mischief takes the form of misalignment. The wooden staircase leading to the upper level is rotated within an almost orthogonal space, intersecting the longitudinal wall that separates the primary and secondary areas. It presents itself as a closed volume, without a visible landing or clear point of entry—its course is visible from the living room, its base remains hidden in the adjoining space. One might even wonder whether it is truly a staircase, and what happens on the other side of the wall. New potentials and narratives emerge from this simple element of vertical circulation. By misaligning itself with the rest of the house, the staircase animates space, redirects movement, and quietly laughs at the orthogonal grid.

Mischief underlines a few important points about such elements. First, they do not conform to rules, logic, or standards. Second, they appear to lack seriousness; they appeal to humor. Yet they remain subtle in their playful misbehavior. These qualities are never taken to the extreme: they are amusing but not ludicrous, stubborn but not unaccommodating. Diagonal staircases, cut-off columns, and yellow drainpipes disrupt space while still belonging to it—reluctantly participating in the project as a whole, questioning it, challenging it, annoying it, and playing tricks on our perception. These elements are never fully under control or reducible to a single reading, nor are they completely out of control. They are seeds that could lead to a potential collapse of the whole.

The two doors of Freihofstrasse apartment building—one big, one small—are placed next to each other and lead from the same space to the same space. Identical in color, frame, handles, and hinges, the only difference between them is scale: one standard, the other slightly narrower but taller. Not exactly a double door. This pairing functions as a rule within the housing plan: in each apartment, the kitchen–dining space opens through two doors toward two separate rooms. When an exception occurs and the same pair ends up connecting only two spaces, the rule is not abandoned but quietly bent, producing an awkward moment that still relates to the logic of the whole. After all, two doors connecting two rooms is not too many.

Performing like jokes that not everyone immediately gets, mischievous elements are not merely entertaining but operate as intellectual exercises. There is humor in them, but also rigor. Both emerge from attempts to resolve difficulties and inconsistencies within a project—whether stemming from client requests, permit applications, or on-site improvisations. Humor often acts as a coping mechanism, keeping the project alive and allowing meaning to surface under pressure. Mischievous elements represent a form of adaptation that continuously renews itself in response to ever-changing circumstances.

The corner column of the Bonjour Tristesse building is elongated in one direction. It appears thinner and more fragile on one side, solid and strong on the other. Cut off at the bottom, it seems to float, grounded only by a thin metal pole. The column originates from an accident that was worked through and transformed into a witty object. Pipelines below made the exact position impossible, and a flying column was rejected as an obstacle for pedestrians, particularly blind people. A metal pole was added, together with a small sign in German stating that the column is not structural. One can make fun of municipal regulations that do not always make sense and allow that resilience to surface as a column that belongs equally to the building, the street, and the city.

The concrete column by the stairs of the Triemli apartment block does the opposite—it does not touch the bay window. The architects wanted a support, but the city rejected load-bearing elements in this area, and yet a version of it remained. Rotated in relation to the rest of the building, it becomes part of the entrance ensemble of stairs, mailboxes, and the property wall, with a lamp hidden behind it. Once again, municipal regulations give life to a quirky column—one that every entrance deserves.

While working on this text, I happened to read a collection of Nabokov’s interviews and came across two remarks: “Humor is really a loss of balance—and appreciation of losing it,”² and, elsewhere, “Good old laughter is a permanent resident in every house I construct… my books would be dreary and dingy edifices indeed had that little fellow not been around.”³ Both capture the argument of this text with striking precision. Twisted staircases, mismatched double doors, and fake columns are meant to be enjoyed and cherished—by architects and inhabitants alike. They are, in fact, almost necessary. Elements inhabit space before the actual inhabitant does. And when one of them slips slightly out of alignment, things shift, space stumbles, and the building comes alive.