Studio Launch

Hmmmmm

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money." ~Cree Indian Proverb.

saturday morning musing

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

  --Albert Einstein

What we say about ourselves

Nathan Speck began his first day as part of our studio...today. And on the walk home from work I was pondering what to tell him about our studio; what to tell him, specifically, to enable him in maximizing his success as a contributer to moving "us" forward.

Last Thursday, I was spending some time with Jack Brittain, the Dean of the School of Business at the University of Utah. He's a student of organizational behavior, among other things. During the conversation we touched on how organizational change seldom finds its power [or its origin?] in the descriptions of organizational purpose derived from folks at the "middle" of the organization. Many people "in" the organization simply can't see out of it, or see the direction of it. Yet, for the folks who can see out, what they tell us about themselves is a complicated mix of who they are, and more importantly, who they aspire to be.

And as we talk with clients, we have to do the same thing. We talk to many of the people in the organization from helmsman to engine room. Each carries with them a different lens through which to see the organization and through which to describe it. And their statements about themselves are varyingly optimistic and pessimistic, far reaching and minutia focused, accurate and flawed, reality and dream. Some folks are simply more communicative than others, just to make it interesting. Its a tough social science we are asked to employ in designing for a crowd that has difficulty in simply asking for what they want. [Just see Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

So it remains up to Nathan, to decipher what I say, and what all the other members of the studio tell him, to determine which is description, which is conjecture and reality, and which is aspiration. Good luck with that, Nathan, it will be good practice for...well, the practice of architecture.

Kansas Wins

...wow that was fun.

new bricklayer additions

GO >>> here

new bricklayer cards added

bricklayer photo album >>> here

bricklayer is out

Cards are showing up at architecture schools near you. See the side bar for the album containing the deck of bricklayer cards...and the poster. We'll add to the album as we add to the deck. To find out what bricklayer is about, start by going to this link >>> bricklayer

Counting Down

Here's a counter you can get, great for a Monday, to remind us of our human connection to the global community...

Poodwaddle.com

Edutopia

Kinda cool.  This happened a while ago (2001) but I just ran accross it.  Mark Miller, an old friend and one of the original Gould Evans folks reviewed the designs assigned by Mountlake Terrace High School math teacher Eeva Reeder:

"Working as a member of an architectural team in the year 2050, you are competing against five other companies to win the contract to design a state-of-the-art high school on a given site. You must present your proposed design to a panel of professional architects who will be awarding the contract. Your design must meet the learning needs of students in the year 2050, must accommodate 2,000 students, and must make use of the natural benefits of this particular site, while also preserving at least half of the existing wetland."

The video's on the site are cute.

> See the original article and the designs here

Also, seen at the Apple Learning Interchange

> Apple article

Hadid - The Over-Rated Architect?

Zaha Hadid gets a lot of attention.  And a few commissions.  And recently recognition and awards from the Architecture world.  With few built works.  Is she doing something right?

Witold Rybczynski thinks she's over-rated:

"The urbanism is slightly frightening—a vision of the city that appears unrelated to either human use or occupation. Brasilia on speed. Walter Gropius once said that an architect should be able to design a city or a teacup. Whatever the merits of such a dubious claim, even Gropius wouldn't have suggested that teacups and cities were interchangeable. In Zaha's world, they are."

And Christopher Hawthorne thinks she is tamer than her carefully constructed public persona:

"Hadid's radicalism has been at least partially a front, more useful in sustaining her mysterious persona than in really suggesting anything valuable about her architecture."

Read their full articles here >

Witold Rybczynski's View

Christopher Hawthorne's View

Also, just for kicks...Read "How an architect who produces countless designs but few buildings can be a success" by Sean Rocha.

Sean Rocha's Take

Her style is modern.  She's an interesting character.  Is she breaking new ground?  Or is she just regurgitating fantastic "Star" forms for publicity sake?  Are these guys right, or just jealous somehow?

I think they're jealous...they should be attacking the million hack architects producing the volumes of visual junk that fills our environment first, then they can split hairs with Hadid.