Nobody mentioned the façade. Everybody mentioned the balcony rail.
We went back to Lindenhof five years after handover with a notebook and no agenda. The residents had plenty to tell us about the wall they look at every day.
The court walls are hand-moulded brick with a flush lime joint. We chose them because a court is looked at from very close, for a very long time, and brick is forgiving of both.
Five years on the wall has done what we hoped: it has become background. The things people talk about are the ones they touch. The oak rail has gone silver where hands rest on it, and two residents asked us not to oil it.
We also heard what did not work. The bicycle room is too small by a third, and the shared laundry is booked solid on Saturdays. Both are now in our brief template as questions we ask before we draw.
Going back is not a courtesy. It is the cheapest research we do, and the only kind that tells us how a building is used rather than how it was meant to be.