Category: Architecture

The other day we went to the planning commission public meeting because one of our clients had a variance request. It was a long tedious affair…and yet insanely interesting. I’m not sure its something I would do on any basis other than as required for items that directly affect me or my clients, but its certainly interesting to have a window in the lives of those around us. From adding a liquor section to Walmart, to a guy who got caught building without permits, there were little glimpses everywhere you looked.

One of my earlier tasks with Rogers+Labarthe architects was to go measure a couple two story office buildings that had a decent sized footprint. It was a great introduction to the BOMA measurement standards for office buildings, but it was even more interesting as an exercise intruding into the worlds of all these folks.

Now that I think about it, strangely it seems most of these spaces weren’t occupied at the time I was measuring them, I’m not sure where the tenants went, but it lends a ghostly aura to my memories. Behind every tenant was another manufactured reality. One standout tenant was a Lyndon Larouche warehouse. Another was a Dale Carnegie workshop. One tenant was a contractor that had replaced the doors with a residential entry with garish glass sidelights. Then there was an immigration lawyer with plush leather furniture. And an insurance agent who had his office decorated with animal heads.

While vertical striation might is the most conceptual way of separating yet combining disparate activities, really all you need is a plastic laminate solid core door.

I just woke up to a dream of working in a crazy old style hotel on the seventh floor. It was not only an old victorian hotel, but one that was under renovation, but you still had to go up the stairs, even though that too was under renovation. Each lobby was a bit different, and the office was an odd mix of bedroom and architecture studio. On one landing was a big screen TV with stuff strewn around like you’d see at a frat house. On another landing was a couple “cat-cheetahs” with beautiful hair but a menacing demeanor.

My previous odd dream from a couple months ago had me in something like the brutalist building of Wurster Hall but stretched out to include a 70’s style four or five story office building that had a high atrium. That too had a very disconnected aspect to it, though in that dream the elevator was the primary transportation from world to world, though there were some stairs involved also.

It seems the beauty of stairs for these sorts of mental activities is that vertical separations lend themselves particularly well to such insular worlds. Its kind of strange when you think of it, living life artificially 10 feet above the ground….or at my office at ZCA, 120 feet.

I don’t remember where I read it, but it has stuck in my head. An architect is paid in experience and in money. If you aren’t getting enough in one or the other (or both!) then its time to move on.

It’s easy to forget the client is a crucial team member of a project. Since they provide the cash (one of their primary roles) its easy for them to become the boss. But their active participation is important in that many projects get derailed due to the indecision of the client.

As the cash provider and the one who will be stuck with the project at the end, it is fair and appropriate that they need to make the important decisions. However, when they take too long to decide or go back on their decisions they hold up the flow of the project. If the consultant team tries to forge ahead without final decisions, if there are any changes in the future, the mass of drawings that need change due to an ill-timed decisions creates coordination nightmares.

As an architect, its easy to tell your cash provider to that they are the decider in chief. What’s not as easy is to inform them of their responsibility to decide in a timely manner.

One of my fondest memories in Berkeley was at a party hanging out with a bunch of artists. The building was utterly non-descript, but the crowd was great fun. Maybe because we all knew each other, maybe because they were a bunch of free spirits, almost certainly the autumn weather played a part, but in the middle of the event a group of us coalesced and started dancing around the fire pit, playacting random mundane activities like mowing the lawn, cutting vegetables, etc, etc.

It was a night all about the crowd and the mood. It could have been almost any old apartment complex, but without the fire pit that moment would have never come.

We just sold one of our coffee tables, thus freeing up our other coffee table that had been sitting on the original coffee table. We’ve had it for a while, it used to hide in the bedroom of our old apartment, but now it sits in the bunnies’ living room.

So as soon we let them out, Peppercorn came out to inspect the “new” table. Of course the full process includes a few nips a the new piece of furniture. I feel bad for the table, but what can you do?

Stillness is something that is easily missed in this society. Honestly, I’m not too good at it – I’m so easily distracted I’ve lost interest in devoting an hour and a half to watch even simple action movies.

The shame of quiet architecture of some renown is that they usually attract tourists who don’t have much time to soak in the stillness.

I mean it is supposedly all about sustaining this planet. But I just wonder. I think sustainability is about the feeling that you are doing something to save the earth.

I know that’s why the projects we’re working on have a green certification. I suspect deep down inside the powers that be don’t give a flying bleep about saving the earth. But they do know their future tenants like the idea of living in a place that supposedly was built according to ways that may have helped prevent some harm planet.

So now, its not about doing anything per se, but checking that box.

In Chinese martial arts the different styles are categorized as hard to soft (external to internal). So something like Shaolin Kung Fu would be hard while Tai Chi would be soft. In the end any martial practice will encompass both ends, but the path getting there is different. This as come to the fore in my experience as I started taking Kung Fu classes after studying Tai Chi for the past year and a half.

I was wondering if there was an analog in architecture, the hard and soft arts meeting towards the same goal. Unfortunately I doubt it. Martial arts have the benefit of aiming towards one ultimate goal, physically beating your enemy into submission. Architecture doesn’t seem to have nearly this singleness in focus. Unlike what they try to drill into your mind in school, this stuff isn’t life nor death…well technically it is, but lets leave the IBC out of it.