“everyone’s a critic”

According to Google (i.e. the answer for everything), the phrase “everyone’s a critic” was quoined on the award winning show Frasier (one of my favorites) and it’s an awesome phrase because we are all critics. We all offer our own two cents (or buck fifty, if you’re me) on any number of subjects that we probably shouldn’t. This is no different in architecture and studio critiques.

Recently I was at the U of A (University of Arkansas – Go Razorbacks!) taking photos and verifying some field measurements at what is currently the Architecture building. When I was done, and this being my first time to the campus, I decided to be a Nosey Parker and peek inside to see what was what.

And, as luck would have it, there happened to be a midterm critique getting ready to start for a number of the studios (SCORE!). I quietly mozied around the peg boards for a bit, raising a queer eyebrow at some and giving the patented archi-nod to others as I waited for the first reviews to start. The projects, I could tell, were in the early stages of development. There seems to be a growing theme in archi-academia to focus on and create a building shell before fully investigating the building program. I find this incredibly annoying, but hey, it’s not my class, so whatever. :-\

I happened upon one set of projects just as the jurors were sitting down and decided to start here. The students were in Studio 6, which I assume is somewhere around 3rd or 4th year. As they began their presentations, first giving the broad strokes and trying to build up to something, I remember thinking back to my own studio years and commenting personally on how far I’ve come since those first awkward presentations to today. That confidence in our work that is key to any successful presentation really can only come from experience.

This sentiment was evident when I snuck over to the 5th year students who were giving their presentations at the middle of their final year. Presentation styles were much different. Much more relaxed, confident and composed.

All in all, I was impressed with the work (if a little annoyed at the over-use of the laser cutter for model making – CHEATERS!!). I really wanted to just pull up a chair and see if I could make someone cry, but I resisted. Maybe next time.

I shot a few photos of some of the works. Enjoy.

the brighter side of Sandy

As the eastern seaboard was devastated by Hurricane Sandy, I remember thinking back to all of the hurricanes I had sat through, and a few I had surfed through (a small salute to a seriously misspent youth) and all of the destruction over the years, some big but mostly small. But mostly what I thought of may be considered a bit morbid to some, but being a “glass half-full” kind of guy, I thought “man, this is going to be huge for architecture and construction”.

I know, I know. You’re thinking “but dude, this was horrible. It was a travesty. Lives were lost and some lost everything in flooding or fire.” And that is all true. And my heart goes out to those people and their families and I sincerely hope that the rebuilding effort is swift and as uncomplicated as possible. But, there’s my point. “The rebuilding” is important.

Natural disasters, while terrible and devastating can bring incalculable opportunity in the rebuilding process. Take Joplin for example. Almost an entire city destroyed in a single day by one massive tornado. Rebuilding will go on for years, but the citizens and the leadership are using this as an opportunity to make their town something better. The same opportunity is there all over the northeast in areas hit by Sandy.

Imagine, instead of just rebuilding what you had or taking your insurance money and buying some other house that isn’t quite right, take that money and invest in a home or an addition that truly suits your family. Or even better use the opportunity to redesign, rethink and rebuild an entire community. Here is an article from the Huffington Post that talks about some of these opportunities.

The point here is, even in the face of tragedy and destruction, there are opportunities for good. Sometimes things must be torn down in order to take a more critical look at how we can make our lives better through architecture for generations to come.

Daily Prompt: what’s love got to do with it?

We each have many types of love relationships — parents, children, spouses, friends. And they’re not always with people; you may love an animal, or a place. Is there a single idea or definition that runs through all the varieties of “love”?

Love, being both a noun and a verb, is defined as: (n) an intense feeling of deep affection, and (v) a deep romantic or sexual attachment to (someone). And this is a hyper-analytical way of looking at love. Really love is anything that grabs a hold of your passion, your drive, your will and leaves you with no alternative but to pursue it no matter what.

I remember sitting in my college orientation for the architecture department. They gave us the typical line “the person to the left and right of you will not be there at graduation” blah blah. My graduating class was about 72, I think (architecture only). I believe we started with maybe 80. The point is we all had a passion for what we were studying, what we were learning. We understood at 18 and 19 years old that there was nothing that could take the place of architecture.

I’ve long joked with my wife that I’m married to architecture and she’s my mistress. Keeps things fresh. But the reality is architecture is my mistress. It’s the thing that I can never give up, no matter what. I stay up late reading about architecture, designing, thinking about how buildings work, thinking of new ways to create an experience for the people and families that will use the buildings I design. There isn’t a moment of the day that goes by that I don’t think about the building arts in some way.

To put it very mildly, I love architecture. And after 10 years of practice and half way to my license I can tell you with absolute honesty that I love it more today than I did 10 years ago. That may sound corny, and some have even told me outright that it’s absurd, but it’s no less true. As the old saying goes, if you love what you do you’ll never work a day in your life. And architecture is one of those professions that, if you don’t love it, really love it, and enjoy the guts and the grit and the not-so-shiny parts then it will eat you alive.

I’ve seen other architects get so bitter and jaded and just nasty about architecture, but yet they just keep on trucking down the road. Eventually they either burn out or just move on to something else….like banking or janitorial work….or you know….something. O_o

So, what’s love got to do with it? In this business, you bet your ass it has everything to do with it.

Daily Prompt: Art Appreciation

Do you need to agree with an artist’s lifestyle or politics to appreciate their art? To spend money on it?

In college I had a professor who told us constantly that we were not allowed to “hate” architecture. We could discuss any design faults, including and not limited to color, views, form, construction details, lack of construction details, human scale, etc. We were even encouraged to find these things to discuss and even took a couple of walks around Savannah during class to view and discuss some of the larger buildings.

Drayton Tower, Savannah, GA

One in particular was Drayton Tower. It’s awful. I never liked that building. Still don’t. It’s a typical mid-century modern tower with some retail on the ground floor, a few offices, I think, and apartments the rest of the way up. It’s a rectangular tower that faces the cardinal directions with one long facade facing due south. It’s all glass. O_o

To describe this as a fundamental design flaw would just be a waste of time. Over the years they tried to combat the fact that they essentially built a huge glass oven by installing tinting on the windows. It’s green. And has faded to different colors over the years and been replaced, etc. So you get a patchwork effect. Then the tinting didn’t really work as well as hoped so they installed large blinds and then beefed up the hvac system…typical stuff. It’s still Savannah….in summer….in a big glass oven.

BUT all of that to say, it’s significance as a piece of architecture for the city is incredibly important. It was the first multi-story building of modern design in a very historic city. It was also the first high rise to be built in the city with central heat and air thank God. And, for better or worse, it has become a part of the urban fabric of the city. It’s iconic for all its failures and successes and should be appreciated for both.

Architecture, like Art, is so often in the eye of the beholder. Some architecture, like art, speaks to us in a profound and visceral way while others we pass by every day without a second thought. Architecture, like Art, is not necessarily good or bad. It’s personal. It’s up to you the beholder, the user, the client, to determine how architecture makes you feel and respond accordingly. Just don’t say you hate it. That’s a useless emotional response that has no hope of creating a conversation.

Earth Day, Architecture and being “Green”

Yesterday was Earth Day. The one day a year when people all gather round, plant trees, pick up trash that they themselves threw on the ground just the day before and generally get all “green” and junk. Even my son, who is 4, announced to me, when I asked what he did at school, that he saved the world from the litter bugs. I love my boy. He has such a simple and profound way of stating things.

But what I wonder is why is this not a part of our daily routine? I myself try and take a biblical perspective on “saving” the earth. We were put here on earth as stewards, as caretakers. God said for us to “go into the earth and subdue it”. We are meant to be lord and master over all. With this comes great responsibility, with which we have failed miserably in my opinion.

I recently read a tag line for another blog that “sustainability” as a term is dead and now considered redundant in architecture. Meaning that “of course” we’re designing to a higher “green” standard…..But the reality, I think, does not match the sentiment. In generations past there was no choice but to be “green” and “sustainable”. Buildings HAD to last more than a lifetime. Building HAD to be constructed of local materials. Buildings HAD to respond effectively to their surroundings and climate. Buildings HAD to work WITH nature, not against it.

Today, our buildings are disposable. Today, our buildings are lucky to last 50 years. Today our buildings still consume more fossil fuel energy in construction and operation than most any other source. This is a gross failure on our part. If you’re not, at minimum, designing each and every one of your projects in response to site specific conditions, you’ve failed. You’ve failed your client, your project and your community.

Even a strip mall can respond to site specific conditions to take advantage of daylighting, cross breezes, rainwater collection for toilet flushing, etc. These are inexpensive, or even free, ways to allow a building to work with it’s site rather than against it. On top of this we need to add better quality materials and more thoughtful construction detailing. The point is not to make sure water and air stay out, but rather to deal with the certainty that when air and water get in, how do we deal with it.

Buildings used to breathe. Let them breathe again.

Daily Prompt: Decisions Decisions

How are you more likely to make an important decision — by reasoning through it, or by going with your gut?

Architecture, like life, is made up of a series of decisions. Some good, some successful. And some….not so much. The process by which these decisions are reached is significant and varies for each designer and each architect. I myself use a combination of the two: reason and gut.

When designing a building for a site, or when renovating an existing structure, the first thing you want to do is get familiar with it. This usually requires a site visit. You need to see, smell, touch and feel the space or property you’ll be designing. You want to know where the sun is, where neighboring buildings are, how tall are they, is there a highway nearby, etc. All of these things will impact your design.

Next you want to look at the building plan or site plan and, depending on what the program calls for, you begin to take all of that information you’ve gathered and begin to make decisions. Some of them will be gut – they’ll just make sense. Others will need to be thought out and reasoned – this usually feels like a game of Tetris. Especially with existing buildings.

the design process….

Architectural Design is not a straightforward or linear process. It’s usually a mess. If most clients saw everything that goes into designing a home or an office building or even a kitchen….they’d probably go mad. Architects are mad already, so it’s ok. In the end, to design a good building you have you use all of the tools available to you. Your gut and your head.

Daily Prompt: Idyllic

What does your ideal community look like? How is it organized, and how is community life structured? What values does the community share?

Well, this one is right up my alley. The idea of community, what it takes, how it’s organized and who inhabits it is essentially what I do every day, all day, for the last 10 years and will continue to do until I’m taken from this earth. I might even design communities in heaven. We’ll see. But first, let’s define “community”.

According to my good friend Webster, community is:

• the people with common interests living in a particular area
• an interacting population of various kinds of individuals (as species) in a common location
• a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society
• a body of persons or nations having a common history or common social, economic, and political interests

Now, what all of these definitions have in common is people being grouped together in common interest. Without people, there is no community, just a collection of well-designed and organized (hopefully) buildings. And on the flip side of this is, without this collection of well-designed and organized buildings the people are just standing around in wide open space wondering what to do.

One of my favorite authors on urbanism is Jane Jacobs. In her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities she describes small neighborhoods in successful cities like Boston, Chicago and other urban centers as not being planned from the beginning, but as having grown over time in such a way as determined by need. She speaks out against the New Urbanism movement quite passionately. I tend to agree with her.

So, what does my ideal community look like? How is it organized and who lives there? My ideal community is one that already exists in thousands of cities all over the world. Communities where people care enough to invest in their own backyard are the communities that I love. It doesn’t have to be a big community or a dense urban center that never sleeps. No, even a sleepy little town with one blinking light on Main Street can be a vibrant and alive community of people all working together to make life better. This, to me, is ideal.

Daily Prompt: Comfort Zone

What are you more comfortable with — routine and planning, or laissez-faire spontaneity?

I don’t always adhere to the “letter of the law” when it comes to these daily prompt posts….and today is no different.

As architects and design professionals it is easy to get comfortable, to stick with what you know, to take the road often traveled. By this I mean it’s easy to stick ourselves in a category and never venture beyond our self-imposed bounds. And in years past, this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you got a few similar projects, you quickly became very good at a select market sector. And if you did good work for those clients, word spread and suddenly you’re the “strip mall guy” or the “urgent care guy” or the “hospital guy” or the “residential addition guy”, so on and so forth ad nauseum. But if history teaches us anything it is that a good thing can not last forever.

Businesses, any business, that do not position themselves to adapt and grow or change with the times will fail. It is no longer a matter of “if” but rather “when”. Architects, design professionals and architecture in general are no different. I even venture to state that Architects are not meant to be pigeon-holed into any specialty. We are Master Builders, and this is our calling. It is not our calling to be hospital designers, or home designers, or mini-mart designers. An Architect can do all of these things once the right team has been assembled. And that is the way it should be.

So, I challenge all my fellow architects and designers out there, stop pigeon-holing yourself. Get out of whatever comfort zone you’ve put yourself in, or been put in by others, and get out there. Design something different, design it well and more clients will come. Our specialty should be architecture. Period.

Daily Prompt: 180 Degrees

Tell us about a time you did a 180 — changed your views on something, reversed a decision, or acted in a way you ordinarily don’t.

In the field of architecture, you lead two lives. These lives are not simultaneous, nor do they overlap. There is an order to them – one must come before the other. And the former will not prepare you adequately for the latter. These two lives that we lead in architecture are education and practice.

Eichberg Hall – Architecture Studio – Savannah College of Art and Design

In education we are taught how to design, how to craft space and light, solid and void. We are taught the precedents of history and then taught to ignore them. We are taught that anything is possible, though leaving out the two most important factors to that statement – Time and Money. We’re taught that anything can be built with a miraculous material called Anti-gravitonium, glass in a universal building material with magical structural properties, and polished cast in place concrete is the only acceptable opaque material that can be formed in ANY shape conceivable…again, irregardless of Time and Money.

In education we explore the sometimes completely unrealistic limits of architectural design and theory. Our imaginations are stretched beyond their limits and sometimes beyond the limits even of Hollywood. We come to think, after years of this experimentation, that life beyond academia will be “just like studio”.

That life abruptly ends day one, minute one of our first internship. Our life takes a 180 and we crash headlong into the face of practice. The practice of architecture is not even really a 180. It’s more like you used to live on Mars. Now you’ve come back to earth where things actually have to make sense, fit within budgets and schedules, be buildable, and most importantly they have to stand up. Because in the real world where cyanoacrylate is not your major joining compound, buildings really do have to work, to stand up. Otherwise they will, and do, fall down. Usually with people in them. And that’s bad.

an architects office – life of an architect (looks way too clean)

Our life in architecture begins with education. This life quickly dies upon graduation and is reborn in practice. This, for me, is real life, real education, real architecture. These two lives are not simultaneous, nor do they overlap. There is an order to them – one must come before the other. But in practice, this is where the real fun begins.

Daily Prompt: Letters

There are 26 letters in the English language, and we need every single one of them. Want proof? Choose a letter and write a blog post without using it.

This is an interesting one. Letters are our basis for communication. We collect letters in groups to form words, which are then grouped to form sentences, and paragraphs and pages, etc. Those letters and words correspond to sounds which become our conversations. Without these letters and the sounds that they represent society does not exist. Community crumbles and is swept away without conversation. Nowhere is this more important and more apparent than in the home. So, instead of going with the intent of today’s daily prompt and leaving OUT a letter, I’m choosing to focus on the letter K for Kitchen as the genesis for this post. What can I say? I’m a rebel.

The kitchen in my mind has always been the center of life, family and community in the home. Growing up I was the oldest grandchild so during big family holiday’s while the men-folk were in the living room drinking and telling lies to each other I was in the kitchen helping my grandmother, mother and aunts with the cooking and the baking, etc. This was an incredibly influential time in my life and is undoubtedly why I spend so much time and energy designing the kitchen and dining areas of my projects as real gathering and entertaining spaces instead of merely functional space requirements.

Even now, as an adult and a family man, the kitchen is where it all happens. When my wife and I have people over, the first place we gather is the kitchen. Mostly because that’s where we keep the wine, but more than that it’s how we most tend to communicate and share is around the preparation of food. That and the kids aren’t allowed in the kitchen so it’s a bit quieter than the rest of the house. :-\

This sentiment is seen throughout our architectural history as well. Some of the earliest cities in the world had a central hearth which functioned not just for the preparation of food and to create warmth, but also was a center of social activity in the home as well. Especially in later periods we see this same trend play out in most vernacular styles of Europe and the Americas. In recent history the focus became more about presentation and entertaining rather than the act of preparation. If you’ve ever lived in a house built from, say, 1850 to 1970 you know what I mean. The kitchen became a place that only the wife ventured into. Once the food was cooked it was brought to the dining table where the social interaction took place. Today our culture is shifting back to entertaining and social interaction as more than just a presentation but rather a process. Kitchens once again are open to the public spaces of the home and each piece is meant to function together rather than apart.