The original note, as written at the time
Clean doesn’t mean cleanable.
Ongoing development
Clean doesn’t mean cleanable.
A building can be delivered spotless and be impossible to keep that way. The grout that collects in a shadow gap, the window that needs scaffolding, the ceiling that can only be reached by removing something, the corner where the broom does not fit — none of these show up in a snag list, because on the day of handover everything is clean. They show up three years later as a building that looks neglected without anybody having neglected it.
The distinction is between a state and a capacity. Clean is a state, produced once, by somebody with time and a cloth. Cleanable is a capacity, designed in, and it is a design decision that is almost never on the drawing.
So the test at design stage is not whether the surface looks good but whether a person with an ordinary mop and ten minutes can reach it. If the answer is no, the design has created an invisible maintenance debt that will be paid by whoever owns the building long after the architect has gone.