Why most gatherings are designed around the table and never the reason; what six women and a string of beads did for a friend who was afraid of giving birth; and why the first question of designing any experience is not what to build but whose need it is meeting.

Why the most polite hosts are actually leaving people to fend for themselves, what Poppy's gingerbread house taught me about structure in a gathering, and why an architecture firm needed a cage match to finally tell the truth.