“Its not who I am, but what I do that defines me.”

- Batman

I had the pleasure of driving halfway across America last weekend, from Seattle to Chicago.  I use the word “pleasure” playfully, as it was a grueling trip, full of inspiration and reason to change the world.

One highlight was in reading aloud to my companion who is now in Chicago (and I back in Seattle) the transcribed “sermon” from William McDonoughs address in 1993 to the congregation at the Cathedral of St. John in NYC, called “Design, Ecology, Ethics & the Making of Things.”  It was a great refresher to McDonough’s philosophical roots and reminded me of much of the banter while in Environmental Sustainability Courses for my sustainability minor in college.

“I am going to speak about the concept of design itself as the first signal of human intention and will focus on ecology, ethics, and the making of things. I would like to reconsider both our design and our intentions.”  - William McDonough

McDonough sets up the sermon with a simple call to reconsider if we have actually bettered ourselves with all that we’ve created.  If you don’t come away reading it with a desire for a more “sustainable future”, you don’t get the premise: Our intentions are given form in our designs. There’s alot of room for corruption there. He proposes changing our designs.  That’s wise, because he realizes there’s not much he can do to change peoples intentions.  The problem with the sustainability movement is McDonough’s forte:  Lets not touch people where its uncomfortable.  Lets not push people’s buttons.  Lets focus on the design. Not people’s intentions. My intentions. While it doesn’t seem like McDonough is not much more than a Deist, I appreciate the rhetoric from a holistic world of life & death, new and old, utilizing the practice of “stewardship” over ownership.  Following his writings for some time, I believe he (as well as many others) falsely assume we can rationalize ourselves out of the problems of our own creation, albeit, save ourselves (LIE).  BUT, I’m all for STEWARDSHIP.  And it starts with me.  I have a lot to change and learn.

I found alot of what McDonough said in this transcript intriguing and would like to share it.  I’ll be posting the next three Thursday Theory blog posts on the subject, and spending the next few months tweeting out some of my favorite stanzas.

Thanks to deathbike.net, I found a copy for download!

Architectural Design Work has seen a remarkable falloff in the past 2 years.  I fortunately have kept busy, too busy obviously to post much here.  One thing I’ve learned, I tend to be busier when I don’t have enough work to pay the bills!

I’ve spent the last  3 weeks mapping out a number goals, and an overarching career goal and have decided to not share the projects I’m working on.  The reasons run pretty deep:

1. Projects are a symbol of the work of design and thought.
2. What drives the profession of architecture and the building industry is not design or projects, or performance, but economics.
3. Architectural Projects are complex and multi-dimensional, creating a myriad of perspectives in which to view them
4. The general public is keenly interested in architectural projects, but fundamentally not interested in the aforementioned design and thought.
5. Architectural History is culturally thought of in terms of historical projects, not the design and thought behind it.
6. Construction focuses on translating a language of drawing into an expression of design and thought.
7. Building Science as a discipline is largely unassociated with design and thought in architecture
8. Building Architectural Projects consists of a vast majority of the thought process, but is highly technical labor.
9. The Construction of Projects is Ultimately a limiting of a design and thought into physical form.
10. Construction Pricing is not based on the value of design and thought of the project, but of the value of the construction.
11. Projects are boring.

That’s my 11 points on why I won’t be posting projects.  Its also my eleven points on why I haven’t posted any projects in the past year.  I’ve been very busy, wishing I didn’t say I would.  So now I’m changing my mind, and saying I won’t.

I’d much rather just write, about whatever design or thought I’m excited about, and study what is moving and changing and make some decisions about where I’m headed and why you should join me.

The one constant right now is that the economy is changing.  We don’t know to what, but it is certain that this change in the economy is different.  Some say we’re at the bottom.  Some say we’ve just gotten started on a downward spiral.  There’s one common thread I see, and that’s that theories and structures are broken, and that’s because we don’t believe in them.

I’m not an economist, or much of a philosohper, but I do think and have ideas, and I’m going to need to make some decisions and believe in a few things, and work through the broken-ness in the present to do something great.

Cusabo Island Beach Cabin is a state of the art building. The clients came to the builder, Ben Hilke of Hilke Development, with ideas for designing a very complex residence. The clients had owned acres of marshland for some time and were making the decision to build and move out there for retirement. All sorts of restrictions were placed on this building simply by its location. I was happy to take part with Woollen Studio in the re-sorting of plans and details [and eventually throwing out the entire drawing set] in order to take the opportunity to be involved in some very unique dwelling design. The result was a full fledged off-grid, pre-fabricated, component construction design from concept to [near] completion.

These images were prepared for Woollen Studio’s Entry for the AIA Seattle Unbuilt Architecture Award.

Just some Pics for now.

Be sure to check out the associated links on this portal to see what’s influencing me and who I’m working with.

More to come under this post soon!