On The Arsenal

I spent a couple of days this week on the east side of Denver to punch walk a project.  It was a good trip, great even.  I always enjoy Denver and have always had a strange affection for the place.  I rarely spend any significant time in the city but I’m in love with the landscape that surrounds it.  There’s something about being in a wide open space, right?  The sky seems bigger and it gives me a giddy positivity that fills me with an almost childlike exuberance.  It’s euphoric and I feel like I have to soak in as much as I possibly can in whatever time I have there.  The euphoria fades eventually, but the renewed belief in possibility remains even after that natural high subsides and I fly home.  I’ve written about this feeling every time I’ve been out west and at least once publicly on this blog.  I don’t think I’ve ever really understood though what exactly precipitates this heightened sense of awareness and to be frank, I’ve never fully allowed myself to embrace it either.

I don’t (at least in recent memory) take vacations in the conventional sense.  The half-truth that I’ve always convinced myself of is that I take mini-vacations on every business trip.  I believe that it’s crucial when you visit somewhere that you immerse yourself in whatever the local vernacular is.  In small ways I usually do exactly that but too often the local vernacular for me is confined to the local dive bar and that’s a damn shame.  Sure there is value in even that but it doesn’t show a true picture of anything – realistically it usually only shows me the negative of a place.  Further exposing the flaw in taking such a limited sample is the nearly certain sense of emptiness I feel after experiencing said local.  Agreed, few things are better than one’s own local dive but what makes that cool is that it’s yours and that it’s in your neighborhood.  All others in comparison seem sad and pathetic.  This, by the way is exactly I’m sure what everyone else thinks of my favorite haunts.  These realizations persuaded me to choose a different path this time and it made a world of difference in my psyche during and post site visit.

Ten minutes from downtown Denver resides the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge.  Strange name, no?  Apparently until the late ‘80s, the U.S. government manufactured nerve gas and mustard gas and napalm and all sorts of horrible chemical weapons on these beautiful 17,000+ acres.  In 1986, it was observed that the lack of human intervention (for obvious reasons) had created a sort of involuntary park.  In ’92, President Bush signed an act that placed the majority of the site under the control of the Fish and Wildlife Service ensuring that the damage to the land caused by our desire to amass weapons of mass destruction would be remediated and the over 300 species of wildlife, many of which are unique to the area would be protected and restored to their native state.  Who knew he was such an environmentalist? 

Regardless of its history, the time I spent on the Arsenal this week is something that I will cherish forever.  That memory is doubly significant – I not only reconnected my spirit with the natural world but more importantly I didn’t do the same dumb shit.  As I searched for a viable alternative to my pattern of engaging local dysfunction Sunday afternoon, it occurred to me that the emotions I feel when I’m west of the Mississippi are connected not only to some romantic notion of Jack Kerouac’s bullshit vision of America but are more so related to the overwhelming sense of promise and hope and beauty that I’ve always seen in nature.  Perhaps it was the latter that guided me to where I landed.  Perhaps it was Hair Nation on XM, a guilty pleasure that I don’t indulge often.  Perhaps it was random chance that I found myself dumbstruck watching the late afternoon sky dance and morph and melt into a million divergent unusual colors with every passing second.  Perhaps (and I’ve never said this out loud) it was God saying, “hey…still here bro.” 

Regardless of why I happened onto the property I thankfully had the wherewithal to recognize and take advantage of the opportunity it presented.  As I think a direct result of that experience Sunday, my confidence and productivity were through the roof Monday morning.  I did (10) hours of impeccable charming architect with the client without a second thought.  Trip last, this blog would have been a diatribe on the pitfalls and obstacles of being an architect – this trip, I was just some guy out west.

The Arsenal is only officially open on the weekends so Monday afternoon I wiggled out of the requisite client dinner and hopped the fence.  I was rewarded with more amazing than I could have ever hoped for.  I just wandered across this rolling prairie and for the first time in far too long truly experienced the local.  Looking up and realizing that you are surrounded by a herd of deer who are not impressed with your presence is humbling.  Seeing bison in their natural habitat stirred images of Native American purity.  Hearing the call of unknown birds in the moonlight on the walk out was stunning.  Being alone in this magnificent landscape was overpowering and awe-inspiring.  There were great spans of time where I was convinced that there was no other person alive on earth – and I was cool with that.  I didn’t need anything else.  I didn’t want anything else.  I just wanted to stay there as long as I could.

Tuesday was a repeat of Monday.  Self-assured.  Confident.  Strong.  Complete.  I bugged out early so I could steal a few moments from nature before my flight.  

I get that this all sounds very Alexander Supertramp and I am willing and able to accept that ridicule.  I wouldn’t trade those two evenings and a minute of the next afternoon for anything in this world though.  I’ve written enough ineffective words to describe these three days – here’s a visual.

 

Happy Mother’s Day

I sat down to write an epic piece about my mom this morning.  I could say this thing or that and recount incredible tales that would convince you that she was, in fact mother of the century.  Suffice to say that she’s tolerated my ridiculousness for (41) years – that alone qualifies her for sainthood, right? 

If you know her, you know that she exemplifies on the regular what we all should strive to be on the daily – caring, compassionate, strong.  She showed me a path for my life by how she lived her own.  She let me choose my own direction and when I ran too slow or fouled it all up, she sat me back on the right.  She gave me a dangerous freedom at a young age and she never censored me.  She just let me, be me.  The incredible thing is that we’ve never really talked specifically about whatever the “thing” is.  A (30) second conversation with my mom about an Indiana basketball game tells me everything I need to know about anything I need to know.  She doesn’t have to say what she’s thinking for me to understand what she’s saying.  She’s realistically the only enduring constant in my random life.

If I were to live for a hundred more years, I could never repay the debt I owe you, Mom.  I haven’t always made the right decisions and I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way.  I haven’t always traveled the path you would have chosen for me, but I’ve finally found my way – on my own terms.  That path wasn’t a straight line from there to here but your spirit was with me at every turn.  Thank you for your patience and always knowing exactly what to say or not to say and when.

Happy Mothers Day Mom.  I couldn’t love you more.

The Disconnect Between Academia and Architecture

I had the great privilege to mentor an architectural thesis candidate this year.  It was the first time I had stepped back into an academic mindset in quite a while.  She challenged and irritated me simultaneously throughout the semester and I’m sure I was of little, to no value to her as an adviser, but it was enlightening nevertheless at least for me.  I’m sure I too often used words such as artifact and process (thanks Berk) but I just wanted her to see the value in the making of the thing.  Too many of her contemporaries were making no thing, nothing actually.   Shortly after I moved to Atlanta I accepted an invitation from a colleague to do desk critiques at Southern Poly, probably to satisfy my community service requirements for licensure, I'm not sure.  At any rate, I quickly became so completely disillusioned with it that I stopped as suddenly as I had started.  Pissed off is a more appropriate term actually.  The project that did me in that time was a pedestrian bridge between Marietta and Piedmont Park.  Seriously?  Yep.

I should preface what I’m about to say with this disclaimer.  I think SPSU is a helluva school.  My mentors at the firm were mostly Poly grads and I learned a ton from them – I consider them great architects, borderline brilliant even.  I would go so far as to say that I wouldn’t be in the position I am in now without the guidance they provided.  Maybe that’s a credit to them only, I don’t know. In the past year, we’ve hired the best and the brightest from that school and these kids hold a world of possibility and promise that they don’t even realize yet.  I don’t want this to sound like I’m slamming a particular school, even though this could be perceived as passive aggressively doing so.

To the point – what is so wrong with at least pretending we live in the real world as we are completing our education?  I only ask because plausibility appears to have taken a backseat to fantasy.  Yes, I understand that it’s your last chance to be completely out of the box before you enter the workforce but I don’t think that should mean that rational thought should be abandoned.  At the end of your thesis, you should at least be able to fake the conversation back into some semblance of reality. 

For the record, this criticism is coming from someone who quoted Moby Dick in their thesis statement. Who cited such architectural giants as The Clash and Ani Difranco and Rage Against the Machine as background to inform said thesis.  Who deconstructed laundry detergent bottles, reconfigured the pieces in model so as to understand the magnitude and purity and symbolic simplicity / dichotomy of the whale breaching the ocean’s surface.    

So I get it.  Be ridiculous, but understand that the last thing you do in college should be the first thing you show in your portfolio.  And if the first page of your portfolio is a colony on Mars, I’m not going to take you as seriously as someone who designed an actual building – on Earth.  As unfortunate as it might be, you will most likely be relegated to practicing architecture on this planet only.  If your proposal to alleviate traffic woes and simultaneously right the racial injustice you perceive Atlanta’s downtown connector to be is to turn those (5) miles into a lake but fail to give me a plan for what to do with the 300,000+ cars that traverse that stretch daily I will walk out of your jury next time too.  You are supposed to be an architect, right?  Then design a freaking building already!  If your architectural thesis doesn’t contain an actual building component, you’ve failed (sorry Jenn).  That's not a popular opinion but I think architects make buildings, not policy.

Yes, I remember being taught that a good architect could not only change the world but has a social obligation to affect the world in a positive manner and in so doing make it a better place through thoughtful design.  And I believe that to be true but if that’s true it’s not going to happen just because we want it to, it will happen through the quality of the spaces we design.  That’s our only value as a profession.  That’s our only directive.  If we believe that we are on the front lines of anything it is the social experience and if we believe that we are equal on a professional scale with doctors and lawyers et al, then we should prove it.  In my opinion, we haven’t yet.  Back to you Jenn, prove me wrong.  You actually have a thesis that might mean something one day.   

The beauty and the tragedy of one’s thesis is that it is just that important.  It was stressed to me how vital it was in a different manner than what I’ve witnessed recently or maybe I just took it differently or I was too old to know the difference.  The true nature of a thesis project, at least in my estimation, is to solidify how you view not only the beauty of but also the practice of architecture.  It is realistically the last chance you will get to say exactly what you want to say without fear of reprisal.  If executed properly, it should inform everything you do from that point onward.  It should be the catalyst that launches you into the field.  It should be a touchstone that you can go back to when the winds blow counter to your thought.  It has the power to define and direct your career but I’m afraid it’s only viewed as a big finale. 

Your thesis project should be your first step into reality, not the last epic spasm of your academic flight of fancy.  Or maybe that’s exactly what it should be.  Who am I to say, really?  As principled as I thought I was at the time, I don’t know if the values I purported to believe in then are center stage in my daily.  The emphasis was in the right place then, but I’ve probably lost the lyric between that day and this – but I still remember the chorus.

To be fair for a minute I must call the entirety of my own education into question and by extension the whole of the architectural education community.  Am I really a better architect now because I designed and constructed a boat out of (10) pieces of cardboard when I was a freshman?  It is kind of a cool thing that with duct tape, glue and a half-pack of Camels we could float (2) teenage girls across a lake at some random summer camp in Mississippi, but did it teach me anything?  One of my first assignments was to design a wall that people could inhabit.  WTF?  Do I just not get it?  Did I ever get it?  And if I don’t, then why have I been successful?  Is my success bullshit?  Am I successful?  How would I even know?  There’s a barometer for success in this country that doesn’t apply to architects.  We are and have always been so full of shit that we don’t even realize that we are full of shit, so there’s no way for us to know if we are doing well except by comparing stats with other full of shit architects.  Sounds like fun, no?  It’s not funny like on TV, and it’s not smart like it is in books.

What is it that I’m really so critical about I wonder after I’ve written this much?  Am I honestly concerned about the effect on the quality of architecture and the disparity that I fear exists between the academic world and practice or am I simply pissed off that practice doesn’t always, hardly ever actually rise to the intellectual height I was made to believe it would or should in school?  Am I concerned at all?  Or am I just trying to figure out and justify the path I’ve chosen?  Has actual practice created this cynicism or was I programmed to not feel like I got it right unless I’m published and I’m grasping for a reason why I haven’t been?  Is this doubt the reason that I busy myself with other projects – art, writing, music to fill the void that honestly exists in the very thing that I love to do the most?  I absolutely love my work.  I love the day-to-day constant struggle to get it right, whatever right might be.  But is that enough?  I’ve just opened a Pandora’s Box of questions that I don’t have the answer to.  At the end of the thought, I don’t think it has to have a capital “A” to be architecture but it does have to solve the problem to qualify. I think I qualify, but is that enough?      

When I was in school, we did imaginary projects for imaginary clients with imaginary parameters and based on how well we satisfied those parameters we received an imaginary fee, our grade.  But at least they were projects that could (usually) conceivably exist in a real world setting.  There was some attempt at a program.  We were made to believe that it was real.  We went to fictitious sites and collected sufficient imaginary data to complete the assignment, and looked really cool doing it I might add.  My strongest influence in college taught me that I should spend at least a year on a potential site before I draw a single line on paper.  I appreciate that dedication to the process, but if I would have listened to him, I would have had no idea what to do with a (6) week deadline – concept to permit when I graduated.

The loose, at best, point that I’m trying to make is that the venue and manner in which we educate tomorrow’s architects isn’t preparing them for success.  If we encourage these young fertile minds to only gallivant down whatever path feels right our profession is screwed.  There is a discipline to the practice of architecture that isn’t being disseminated to the next generation, wasn’t told to me either exactly.  There appears to be even less discipline exacted now than even when I was in school.  No, I don’t expect any school to teach in five years what I expect out of an intern on day one, but whatever education they do have should prepare them for the fire that I will hold them to immediately.  Accountability.  Ownership.  Exactness.  Can you be perfect?  Can you be fast?  Can you hold your own when a GC calls you a dick?  I want and need young architects to feel the same fire that I do.  And that’s not something that you learn in school.  You either have it or you don’t and you sure as hell don’t get it because you “designed” some cool thing.

Again and finally, I feel compelled to celebrate SPSU – their alumni taught me how to be an architect as much or more so than my own alma mater did.  Joe made me understand how important it is to be precise in every move I make.  David showed me what it really means to manage a client.  Scott taught me that design matters, no matter the project type.  Kiley taught me how to sell all of this bullshit and make it profitable.  That combined is a debt I can’t repay.  I draw from each of those relationships daily.  Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be – maybe you can’t understand what it means to be an architect until you are around practicing architects every day.  Maybe, most likely, it means something else to you anyway.

Maybe there is no disconnect between Academia and Architecture after all.  And if there is, maybe there should be.  Perhaps the disconnect exists on a much smaller scale, on a personal level that only practicing architects can affect.  Maybe it’s not the big clusterf@#$ I perceive it to be.  Perhaps, I just wrote a bunch of words that mean very little to you. Here's the one thing that I am sure of – we as architects are important.  I’ll never stop believing that.  And if I do my job properly there’s no way that you could disagree, whether you see the value in what I do or not. 

Thirty Days in April

I guess I should come up with more creative titles if I'm going to keep this up.  That's not really the point, though I'm not always sure what is.  In other news, I'm adding Song of the Day for your auditory and ocular enrichment.  Don't read too much into that – it's just whatever is in my ear.  If you missed them, here are links to last month's posts:

Thirty-One Days in March (Part 1)

Thirty-One Days in March (Part 2)

Monday – 01 April 2013  

The color is finally starting to come in around the backyard.  I brought a few sprouts of this Vinca vine home from my Mom in Mississippi a couple summers ago in a plastic bag, haphazardly planted it around that old pine in the corner and it comes back bigger and stronger and more every year.  That is truly amazing.

Song of the Day:  Mr. Blue Sky - E.L.O.

Tuesday – 02 April 2013  

More back yard color.  I'm not sure what this is but it blooms every spring in spite of me having transplanted it from across the way right after I moved in.  They haven't grown an inch in years but they always bloom. 

Song of the Day:  That's My Baby - Sleeper Agent

Wednesday – 03 April 2013 

I'm only slightly aware of how ridiculous it is that today's highlight was going to see the eye doctor.  Good to be back in contacts though and better that I get to put my glasses on the shelf for a bit.  

Song of the Day:  Happy Kid - Nada Surf

Thursday – 04 April 2013

I put the small final touches on blue tonight.  I think it's a good piece – the feeling of knowing when a painting is complete never gets old. 

Song of the Day:  Keep Yourself Alive - Queen 

Friday – 05 April 2013

Soup! 

Song of the Day:  Flavor of the Weak - American Hi-Fi

Saturday – 06 April 2013

After a long winter's nap in the basement, she started on the first pull!  And I finished the yard work before noon on this beautiful spring day.

Song of the Day:  In a Big Country - Big Country

Sunday – 07 April 2013

Spent some much needed quality time with my imaginary girlfriend Grace Potter in Centennial Park this afternoon.  Free show. Spring in the ATL. Hot blonde playing a Flying 'V'.  Outstanding!

Song of the Day:  Sweet Hands - Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

Monday – 08 April 2013

The best part of my day was actually driving home ripping air guitar to the new Clutch record but that's hard to capture in an image so here's some more random spring.  

Song of the Day:  Earth Rocker - Clutch

Tuesday – 09 April 2013

It doesn't look like much.  And I'm not sure what marketing genius dreamed up the name as it literally resides at the geographical center of the metro.  It does however qualify as a dive and they have above average wings – that's a win / win on a Tuesday.

Song of the Day:  City of Angels - The Distillers

Wednesday  – 10 April 2013

I guess working in the suburbs does have its perks.

Song of the Day:  Griselda - Yo La Tengo  

Thursday  – 11 April 2013

Finally, a day of cleansing showers to knock down some of this pollen.

Song of the Day:  Chickamauga - Uncle Tupelo

Friday – 12 April 2013

Son Volt at Terminal West.  Incredible.  

Song of the Day:  Hearts and Minds - Son Volt

Saturday – 13 April 2013

Great, fun, weird as always.  An unexpected bonus was the opener Moon Hooch – new favorite band. 

Song of the Day:  Why Does the Sun Shine - They Might Be Giants

Sunday – 14 April 2013

Finally.

Song of the Day:  Ain't Waitin' - Justin Townes Earle

  

Monday – 15 April 2013

There might be nothing better than coming home to this crazy face everyday.  She's chewed that nasty ball completely in half (again) and she still wants to play.  You have to love her dedication.  I feel very lucky today in light of the tragedy in Boston – Godspeed the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.  

Song of the Day:  I Don't Want to Grow Up - The Ramones

R.I.P Joey Ramone (05.19.1951 - 04.15.2001)

Tuesday – 16 April 2013

On a site visit in Hogansville (halfway between Atlanta and nowhere) I was reminded again just how much I love steel.  Beautiful, no?  Didn't expect to find a quality Greek restaurant this far into the hinterland either, but the souvlaki at Niko's was right on time. 

Song of the Day:  Stranger Than Fiction - Bad Religion

Wednesday – 17 April 2013

What's better than your day starting with a neighbor's tree falling and missing both your house and your beloved dogwood?  Ending it with a greasy Milo's cheeseburger!  I think I will like these Tuscaloosa site visits after all.   

Song of the Day:  Bodegas and Blood - Butch Walker

Thursday – 18 April 2013

Fun with macro and inspiration for a new piece perhaps.

Song of the Day:  Flake - Jack Johnson

Friday – 19 April 2013

Company retreat deep in the heart of suburbia.  Gorgeous view from the back deck but a little too manicured for my tastes – the inhabitants of such environments make me nervous.   

Song of the Day:  Rip and Tear - L.A. Guns

Saturday – 20 April 2013

Annual crawfish boil in the 'burbs.  Delicious food, good people, frisbee sticks and fun for all, same as every time.  Lagniappe of bacon wrapped duck breast with a grilled beef heart chaser just because.

Song of the Day:  Tones of Home - Blind Melon

Sunday – 21 April 2013

Neglected the balance of my weekend list and spent a lazy Sunday with the pups in the backyard.

Song of the Day:  My Favorite Things - Me First & The Gimme Gimmes 

Monday – 22 April 2013

This morning I took my studio to see a facility I designed for PPG last year.  I'm proud of the project. Architecture in a general sense is a crap shoot due to forces typically outside of our control.  For what it is, this one worked.

Song of the Day:  All Along The Watchtower - Richie Havens

R.I.P Richie Havens (01.21.1941 - 04.22.2013)

Tuesday – 23 April 2013

Some days ten bucks on a five dollar scratch off is epic.  Today was thus.  

Song of the Day:  Same In The End - Sublime

Wednesday – 24 April 2013

Quick, effectively pointless trip to Savannah today, but I sure do love flying back into Atlanta (even if I do suck at taking pictures from an airplane.)   

Song of the Day:  Home - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Thursday – 25 April 2013

Sat in on final juries at SPSU for a bit today.  It's equally refreshing and terrifying to be around young fertile minds.  That's a story for another day I suppose.  Meantime, I painted this little piece on the bathroom wall – owning the walls is a good thing when out of canvas.

Song of the Day:  Onion Skin - Boom Crash Opera

Friday – 26 April 2013

I attended the ribbon cutting / dedication ceremony for one of my firm's projects this afternoon.  The Wrangler factory in Hackleburg, Alabama was completely destroyed in the 27 April 2011 tornado outbreak, but they decided to stay and rebuild on the same site.  We designed their new state of the art facility and also designed a memorial that recognized all of the (52) individuals who died in the (3) county area where Wrangler employees live.  It was an honor to be there today and to play a small part in putting this community back together.  What I saw today is possibly the best case scenario of the human condition.  That said, the best part of my human condition was stepping out of this minivan with wings unscathed (these little planes bug me out in thunderstorms).

Song of the Day:  I Sang Dixie - Dwight Yoakam

Saturday – 27 April 2013

(9) holes of rain free golf in the morning, lunch at La Fonda and a pig roast on the outskirts with good friends – it should probably be against the law to have as much fun as I had today. 

Song of the Day:  Live on Stage - Dilated Peoples

Sunday – 28 April 2013

Rainy, nap-filled, Netflix Sunday with the kids and a fever and a migraine.

Song of the Day:  If I Ever Leave This World Alive - Flogging Molly

Monday – 29 April 2013

I stopped by the pet store on the way home to get the pups some grub and damn near walked out with one of these little guys.  I should put it to a vote but I think the studio could benefit from having a mascot (or two).

Song of the Day:   Pancho and Lefty - Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard

Tuesday – 30 April 2013

At a SIOR event, I played the Piedmont Driving Club today which by all accounts is equal to Augusta National.  It was a helluva course and just being there definitely elevated my game – best round of golf for me maybe ever.  I didn't belong there though did I?  Should I really have a caddy?  With a 20+ handicap?  Days like this make me equally question and relish the path I've chosen.  To have the opportunity to play a track like this is truly incredible, unprecedented even, but these aren't my people.  The guys I was grouped with were cool and I wasn't the worst golfer so that was a bonus.  I never felt comfortable though.  Long hair and tattoos is evidently less than common at PDC.  I'm cool with being a public course kind of a guy.  I get it, but I had a (500) dollar day on (60) bucks in tips – life could be worse.  Honestly, just being there made me feel like a sellout...but damn that was a beautiful amazing course.

Song of the Day:  To Have and Have Not - Lars Frederiksen And The Bastards

Tomorrow is May.  That's (31) more opportunities to get prepared for VAHI.