KATHY

a part of an autobiographical novel (Cautiously Pessimistic) that I started but haven't finished: 

KATHY Friday 8/28, 2009 7:30pm

They rode home from dinner in silence.  Both of them were tired from a long week.  A beer sloshed around lazily in Jacob’s stomach.  A beer fog swirled lazily around his brain.  Breana stared out the window, meditating as much as driving.  She looked sad.

“What are you thinking about Beautiful?” he asked, gazing out the window.  He turned down the AC.

“Kathy”

He straightened up a little.  “Want to talk about it?”  The dark streets of Marblehead crawled slowly by.

“It just makes me sad.  Kathy really fought you know, right up to the end”

“I know,” he said, reassuring.  He looked over at her face, she was sad but she wasn’t crying.

“It makes me think,” she continued, “every time I get obsessed about all the little things that go wrong… she really had some shit she went through in her life, divorces, bad career stuff… cancer… and she really fought through it – right to the end.”  She seemed to be talking to herself.  He just listened.  “She really was an inspiration to me.  I kinda feel guilty,” she sniffed a little, “like, I’m not her kid or anything, like I don’t really have a claim on her to be so sad.”

“You can’t claim people like that; you have a right to be sad.  She was your friend,” Jacob said. “Besides, I don’t think her family would want you not to be sad about her dying.  It’s important to remember people.”  He thought, Strange, I don’t think I ever met Kathy.  He felt like he knew her.

“Kathy was very good to me.  When I started on UNC, she helped me a lot.  She really taught me how to detail.  My ‘reputation’” she made air quotes, “for being good at that, for being good at anything – in the office – she taught it to me.  Not anybody else, just Kathy.”

“Really?” he had no idea.

“Yeah, she drew all the details by hand then handed them to me to draft in AutoCAD.  But she didn’t just use me as her pen,” she was looking back into time and out the windshield at the same time.  “She took the time to explain things to me.  She sat me down and told me ‘Studs are spaced like this’ and ‘If you’re doing a wood wall you do this’, like that,” a note of sadness filled her voice, “She always looked out for me.

“I remember she asked me one time where my family came from.  I told her that I thought my Dad’s family was from Latvia or Lithuania and she said, ‘You’re a Slav!  That’s why you’re so smart!’  And I remember thinking that was such a compliment, because Kathy always seemed so brilliant.  She always was so interesting.  She was like the woman I want to be – strong.”  There was a wistful note in her voice.  “And I could really talk to her about India; she always seemed like the only person who really understood what we meant when we talk about it.  I think people just think we’re crazy half the time.”

“Yeah, no kidding” he seized on the opportunity to turn the topic away from Breana’s dark thoughts.  Too much dwelling probably wasn’t good for Breana right now.  Too many stresses in her life.  “I hope your parents have a good time there”

“I think they will,” she said thoughtfully

“I hope so” Jacob said, thinking of Donna’s penchant for 5 star hotels.  “I hope they come home with some fun crazy stories.”

She smiled, “They will.”  They drove home in a lighter mood.

The Tyranny of AC

a piece I wrote for a professional writing workshop:


Every summer I put an air conditioner in our bedroom window.  Most of the time it's off.  I hate using it.  But, a few days each summer it gets so hot that our window fan just can’t cut it any more.  So I turn the AC on before we go to bed.  


When I wake up in the morning, I always feel much more tired than on other days. 


I can’t figure out why, but I feel it every time.  My theory is that I sleep in some kind of coma while it’s on.  The AC makes a humming noise that drowns out all other sounds (even my snoring) and the temperature is perfectly constant.  The whole world disappears.  You’d think it would be great for sleeping – and maybe it is.  It’s just not so great for waking up.

AC is one of the great transformative elements of modern architecture.  It’s allowed us to build bigger and more consistently.  It’s let us build in hostile climates.  And it’s helped us make hospitals cleaner and manufacturing more precise. 

After a half century of universal AC, we expect that buildings (any building, every building) should be unchangingly comfortable.  They should have uniform lighting, constant temperature, no breeze, no humidity, no smell.  They should be like goldilocks’ bed: not too cold, not too hot, but juuust right.  And they should be that way no matter what's happing outside.

Think about that.  Think about your office.  Has the AC ever broken in the summer?  Have you ever thought about opening a window then realized that you couldn’t?  Were you surprised that you didn’t know you couldn’t?  Have you ever looked out the window, then gone outside for lunch and realized it was much hotter or colder than you thought – or that it was raining?  Were you surprised?

Of course, stability can be good; in some situations, it’s absolutely necessary.  If the temperature varied dramatically in a hospital, people could die.  If an office were so humid that dew formed on the desks in the morning, the office computers wouldn’t last very long.  But it’s easy to take it too far.

Because we expect buildings to be perfect, architects design offices and homes as if they were hospitals.  We install complex HVAC machines to keep our indoor environment at the perfect temperature.  We lock the windows so nobody can defeat the careful environmental control.  This is important in some settings (like microchip manufacturing and operating rooms). But rarely.  It has no place in our offices, our schools, or our homes.

A building should breathe.  It should acknowledge the seasons and celebrate the weather.  It should have variable lighting, temperature, humidity, even smell that changes with the day, the seasons, and the years.  A building should reflect its place and time.  It should have natural materials that are durable, but that age gracefully.  Most of all, a building should challenge us to feel the world around us.

Innovation?

innovate
ĭn'ə-vāt‘ – to introduce something new
from latin innovāre – to renew, alter

to create noticeable change in a process or product
an ipso facto characteristic of experimentation

• implies significant change (scale? or threshold?)
• not the change itself, rather...
• the desire to change or the recognition that change occurred
• the result of concerted effort toward other goals
• not something that can be focused on independently
• implies an agenda of experimentation
• in practice, implies tolerance for failure

in short - innovation is not a goal it is a result
so stop talking about "innovating" and start actually "experimenting"

Facebook for Architecture?

A "Facebook for Architecture"?
http://www.fastcompany.com/1594118/why-cant-the-worlds-best-architects-build-a-better-web-site

Alternate architecture - Maurilia

"In Maurilia, the traveler is invited to visit the city and, at the same time, to examine some old postcards that show it as it used to be: the same identical square with a hen in the place of the bus station, a bandstand in the place of the overpass, two young ladies with white parasols in the place of the munitions factory.  If the traveler does not wish to disappoint the inhabitants, he must praise the postcard city and prefer it to the present one, though he must be careful to contain his regret at the changes within definite limits: admitting that the magnificence and prosperity of the metropolis Maurilia, when compared to the old, provincial Maurilia, cannot compensate for a certain lost grace, which, however, can be appreciated only now in the old postcards, whereas before, when that provincial Maurilia was before one's eyes, one saw absolutely nothing graceful and would see it even less today, if Maurilia had remained unchanged; and that in any case the metropolis has the added attraction that, through what it has become, one can look back with nostalgia at what it was."
– Cities & Memory 5, Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino. 

Excellence?

excellence (ˈeksələns)
   1. The quality of being outstanding or extremely good.
   2. An outstanding feature or quality.


"Excellence" is meaningless.  Case in point.  The word is slippery, vague, and uncontroversial.  It expresses an aimless desire, with no roadmap for achievement.  Saying you "value" it is like saying you value goodness or truth .  Saying you "measure yourself by" it is just stating the obvious.  Saying you "strive for" it just means you aren't lazy.  Saying you "have a passion for" it just comes off as egotistical.  Meaningless.

What a tragedy.  Where did we go wrong?  There's a clue, I think, in the word's origins.  The Latin root is "excellens", meaning elevating or rising.  But the source of the idea is earlier.  It's heavily entwined with two Greek ideas: Arete and Aristos.

Loosely defined, Arete meant living up to one's inner potential, a kind of strength in the face of adversity, and self-control.  It suggested a just life and energetic pursuit of right action.  In this context Arete is often translated as "Virtue", rather than "Excellence".  Arete was process-oriented, applied during a task (or a life) to focus effort.  It was measured in personal bests.

Aristos, on the other hand, meant both superior ability and superiority over others.  Aristos is the root word of "Aristocracy", which literally translated should mean "rule by the best".  Aristos implied a comparative social standard, where beating the competition defined success.  It suggested an unbroken continuum of success over multiple actions.  Aristos was recognized after the fact, for prior achievements.  It was expressed in rank and prestige.

Our mixed-up modern word contains these two sub-components: disciplined progression toward one's potential (arete) - and - superior achievement (aristos).  Depending on the context, one or another of these is subconsciously emphasized.  But not both at the same time.  When arete is mistaken for aristos, vice-versa, or when neither is clearly identified, that's when the concept gets murky and useless, or worse, dangerous.

In sports, arete is naturally emphasized.  Student athletes understand that self-improvement is the true objective, not winning.  Most of sports wisdom revolves around this idea.  The old saying, "it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game" is an almost pure expression of arete.  But when hockey moms or soccer dads start confusing arete with aristos, dangerous things can happen.

In business and politics, aristos is emphasized.  All the focus is on profit and superiority.  Process and improvement are just means to the end - being the best.  When MBAs substitute resultant aristos for process-oriented arete, confusion sets in.  I think this is the main source of dissatisfaction with business books, of which "Good to Great" by Jim Collins is the most famous example.  Like nearly all business writing, the book is long on summary and short on substance.  Mr. Collins research is exhaustive and perfectly relevant for determining corporate aristos - for finding out, after the fact, which companies are excellent (at making a profit), and why.  But the book is almost entirely silent on corporate arete - exactly what to do to make your company better right now - despite that being the stated purpose of the book.  Post hoc ≠ propter hoc.  If you read the book, ask yourself, "How do I encourage Level 5 leadership"? or "How do I determine my company's BHAG"?  Confusion.

Successful modern expressions of excellence avoid the use of the word entirely. Nike's famous slogan "There is no finish line" is a brilliant example.  It implies arete perfectly - process oriented, aspirational, and clear. Energizer's slogan, "Nothing outlasts the Energizer. It keeps going and going and going..." is equally brilliant - for Aristos.  It ties the product to superior performance.  But, although these slogans are clever, skirting the use of the word is flirting with cliche.  Say the slogan once, it's powerful.  Print it on a million T-shirts, and it fades to nothing.

My inspiration isn't there.  But I'm not giving up.  There's an idea out there worth aspiring to.  And I'll keep pushing toward it.

Further exploration:
http://www.radiolab.org/2010/apr/05/
http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html

Alternate Architecture 11 - the looking glass house

"'Now, if you'll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I'll tell you all my ideas about Looking-glass House. First, there's the room you can see through the glass—that's just the same as our drawing room, only the things go the other way. I can see all of it when I get upon a chair—all but the bit behind the fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I could see THAT bit! I want so much to know whether they've a fire in the winter: you never CAN tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and then smoke comes up in that room too—but that may be only pretence, just to make it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the books are something like our books, only the words go the wrong way; I know that, because I've held up one of our books to the glass, and then they hold up one in the other room."

- Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll, 1871. 

Welcome to 2012!  - Jacob

Time isn't holding us

"You may ask yourself, what is that beautiful house?
  You may ask yourself, where does that highway lead to?
  You may ask yourself, am I right, am I wrong?
  You may say to yourself, my god, what have I done?
  Letting the days go by...
  Time isn't holding us, time isn't after us
  Time isn't holding us, time doesn't hold you back
  Time isn't holding us, time isn't after us
  Time isn't holding us..."
- Once in a Lifetime, The Talking Heads

Alternate Architecture 10 - architect unknown

Books always have authors.  Even when they don't.  Books almost always include an author's byline, even to the point of including "Anonymous", if necessary.  Works published under a false name are attributed to the pseudonym naturally.  Even when the author's name is known.  References to books or articles always include the author's name.  When referencing a book, we are taught to scrupulously attribute the work to the author.  Books need authors.  It humanizes them.  Knowing the author (even when we don't) makes them accessible.

Paintings usually have artists.  If they don't, it's considered a tragedy.  To many, the value of a specific painting lies mostly in the value of the artist.  That's true both for monetary value and cultural significance.  Without an artist, a painting is cut adrift in a sea of images.  Faced with an unknown painting, historians or collectors will often first try to establish the artist.  When talking about a painting, a historian will describe the painting as it relates to the artist's life.  Paintings need artists.  It places them.  Knowing the artist makes them accessible.

Buildings often don't have architects.  Even great buildings.  Even when they do.  Buildings don't have plaques proclaiming their architect's name.  Newspaper and magazine articles about buildings rarely mention the architect (excepting architecture critics, of course).  Articles regularly omit the name of the architect, even when the architect is well known.  Buildings need occupants; not architects.  Perhaps omitting the architect makes them more accessible?

If you believe

"If you believe in trying to make the best of the finite number of years we have on this planet (while not making it any worse for anyone else), think that pride and self-righteousness are the cause of most conflict and negativity, and are humbled by the vastness and mystery of the Universe, then I'm the same religion as you." - Sal Khan, khanacademy.org

Sketches from India

Some of my sketches from Tamil Nadu, India
Robert James Eidlitz Travelling Fellowship, 2004

 

Alternate Architecture 9 - India

a piece my wife and I wrote for our Robert James Eidlitz Fellowship application:


In India, a thousand tiers of culture overlap, written layer after layer upon each other, never erasing, never revising, sometimes obscuring, but never clarifying each other.  Modern kitsch coexists with traditional dance in big budget Indian movies.  Fast food mixes with traditional architecture.  And religion infuses everything.  Out of all this explodes one of the world’s fastest growing economies, largest populations, and most misunderstood cultures.  India’s emerging influence can be felt around the world, along with its deep history, exotic culture, and unique aesthetic.  Its history is full of dramatic clashes between Islam and Hindu, tourist and pilgrim, commercialism and tradition.  Its intellectual growth amazes, while its overcrowded poverty staggers.  Studying how these warring cultural influences coexist within the Indian mind might tell us (designers and artists) a lot about our own futures in a world of increasingly conflicted and dynamic forces.

Indian architecture is an enigma.  It's an explosion of colors, forms, and figures.  For many in the West, Indian architecture is a complete unknown.  It's forms and structures are far away and unfamiliar.  

In Sanskrit, the word vastu means architecture or surrounding; shastra means system or rules.  Thus Vastu Shastras are an architectural design system, or rules for creating surroundings.  These ancient Indian texts make up perhaps the oldest design philosophy in the world.  Amazingly, although the shastras are now thousands of years old, Indians still use their principles to design and construct buildings today (as the Chinese still use Feng Shui). 

It is the Vastu Shastras that enumerate the fundamental principles of Indian (Hindu) design familiar to architectural history students, including the mandala (sacred plan diagram), maana (proportional relationships), and aayaadi (rules for human wellness).  However, the Vastu Shastras do not distinguish between architectural design, sculpture, painting, and city planning.  To the ancient authors of the vastu shastras, sculptures, buildings, and cities were simply details of the greater cosmic order. 

Mamallapuram’s Pancha Pandava Rathas (“five chariots of Pandava”) are illustrated examples of the Vastu Shastras.  Carved from solid rock to resemble Indian temples in the Dravidian style, the rathas contain, in miniature, all the essential characteristics of Indian temple architecture.  Built as early as c.630-670, the Rathas seem to have predicted the development of Dravidian temple architecture in the following centuries.  Small “test models” of temple design, these detailed sculptures are a guide to the complex language of Indian architecture.

The spectacular temple-caves at Ellora abound with 600 years of artistic detail.  12 Buddhist, 17 Hindu, and 5 Jain caves share the west-facing wall of a cliff overlooking an ancient trade route.  Although devoted to three different religions, some of the temples are believed to have been built and occupied simultaneously.  Two of the most spectacular caves, the Buddhist Monastery Cave Tin Tala and the Hindu Kailasa Temple, are believed to have been under construction at the same time.  The Kailasa Temple, in particular, is one of the most amazing works of architecture and sculpture in India.  Hewn from solid bedrock, the 90m long by 53m wide by 30m tall temple is both a fully designed Indian temple and a single, massive sculpture! 

Madurai city is the embodiment of the Vastu Shastras’ Mandala plan.  The streets are arranged in concentric squares radiating outward from the amazing Sri Meenakshi temple.  Mass rituals reinforce the power of the Mandala design with huge processions through the streets in a clockwise direction around the temple.  The Mandala design of the city is a detail experienced at every turn in Madurai, whether walking down the city streets named for Tamil months, wandering through the thousand pillared hall of the Meenakshi temple, or observing the ancient art in the “Tank of the Golden Lotuses”. 

A “detail” in Indian architecture is more than just a piece or a part; it is a reflection and a guide to the whole.  Each stone embodies the spirit of the sculpture; each sculpture embodies the spirit of the structure; each structure embodies the culture; each culture embodies the order of the world; the order of the world embodies the order of the cosmos.  Each detail contains the logic of the whole. These details are not merely worth studying for their contribution to a greater whole; rather they are compelling in themselves for what they teach us about the deeper order of Indian design. The gods are in the details because the details are the architecture. 

Alternate architecture 8 - tower building game is best of the year

2011's iTunes game of the year is Tiny Tower by NimbleBit LLC.

Alternate Architecture 7 - phantom limbs

The Nefelejcs Project reveals the phantom limbs of architecture.  The group draws a plan or section of a vanished building on a nearby wall.  A simple shadow, a cartoon, these drawings show the ghost of places now gone:
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/12/merge-invisible-murals/

Alternate Architecture 6 - Thomas Doyle

Thomas Doyle's amazing miniatures capture the essence of loss.  Surreal portraits of homes capture simultaneous moments before and after some destructive event.  The tiny people inside make the tableaus all the more sad.

"My work mines the debris of memory through the creation of intricate worlds sculpted in 1:43 scale and smaller. Often sealed under glass, the works depict the remnants of things past—whether major, transformational experiences, or the quieter moments that resonate loudly throughout a life. In much the way the mind recalls events through the fog of time, the works distort reality through a warped and dreamlike lens." - Thomas Doyle.

Alternate Architecture 5 - mapping comes inside

Ever watched a spy movie and seen the hero whip out a gadget, push a button, and access a floorplan of the building they are in?  Ever wish you could do that?  Google's working on it.  

Alternate Architecture - Gingertecture

It's a sixties postmodern gingerbread house.  Although, I hesitate to call it a "house"...  it's more of a ... "Palazzo".  It's designed by renowned architect Morad Mejohas.  - Acura Commercial, 2010.




Everybody loves gingerbread houses.  Especially architects.  Every year my firm has a gingerbread house competition.  It's great fun.
I'd love to know what you think is important in a gingerbread house.  Maybe it's similar to what you think is important in a real house?  Or not?  Please take my fun holiday survey!
Thanks, Jacob

Alternate Architecture 4 - the gift to be simple

from: www.wikimedia.org

I have a vivid memory of visiting the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill outside Louisville, KY.  It was a bittersweet, sad experience, like walking through a house one last time before moving out.  Everything was quiet and empty, but full of memory.  Small touches remained to hint at past cheerful times – a chair, a quilt, or a desk all alone in an empty room.

There was a simple elegance to Shaker life.  It extended through every object they made, every song they sang, and every place they touched.  They lived with nature, using every product of their industry, with very little waste.  But they were also very progressive.  Their places are museums to us now, but that's just because time has passed them by.  They used and invented cutting edge labor-saving devices.  Before suffrage, they had a society of rough equality and human dignity.  It's sad their beliefs doomed them to extinction.

Our lives can’t and shouldn’t be like the shakers – but we can learn much from them.  Living with less can be a virtue.  Working simply can be the greatest joy.   And having less can make us free. 

Alternate architecture 3 - Washington DC

A recent exhibit at the National Building Museum takes a look at the Washington DC that could have been, but isn't.  Unbuilt Washington features a collection of architectural models, drawings, and exhibits showcasing the unbuilt works of many different architects for projects both familiar and strange.  It sounds like a fascinating exhibit.

But maybe more interesting is the Washington DC that could be, but isn't.  The video game Fallout 3 is a post-apocalyptic action shooter set in a Washington, DC ravaged by nuclear weapons.  It's uncanny representation of ruined DC is both oddly simplistic and enormously vast.  It shows the powerful creative potential of a place (mis/re)interpreted.

Alternate architecture 2 - Gibellina

Gibellina could be a city in an Italo Calvino book.  Destroyed by an earthquake in 1968, with tragic loss of life, the city was not rebuilt.  Rather, the residents relocated to a new site nearby (new Gibellina), leaving the ruins behind.  At the request of the city, the artist Alberto Burri created a huge commemorative sculpture from the remains of the town.  The sculpture / site is a literal Nolli map, where the streets are void and the buildings are entirely poche.  It's a surreal place - a fossilized city that no one can ever inhabit again.