If not this, than what?

photo by cca

photo by cca

Photo by Sean Gaw

It has been a long time and this is probably the way it is going to go for me with this blog.  Right now I am working my guts out trying to get the RIT project in a state of completion.  If you want an idea of what has been going down, first read about the RIT project, and then read about Charrette.  This is not the point of me writing though.  I want to tell one of those stories that make me feel connected and part of a larger, civil community.

I ride my bike to work most days just as I did on May 18th.  I was starting to feel a bit under the weather but did the ride anyway.  Turns out that the combination of 14 hour work days and sickness is not a good one, and I got full blown sick that day.  It took a long time for me to feel physically better and awake enough to ride my bike back home.

A bit about the bike.  My bike is not much to look at but I do love it.  It was lovingly called a “frankenbike” because of its put-together nature.  It’s a mutt, but a fierce, fast mutt.  All I can say is that I bought a bike that fits me and I have begun to really love it even though it feels bad being parked next to the BMWs, and Mercedes of the bike world here at Cambridge Center.

At my workplace we have a bike locker in the garage and I felt that my bike was perfectly safe being left there for the better part of two weeks.   But … there was always a fear in the back of my mind that someone would complain about the fact that my bike had not moved in a while.  So, last night when I was walking to the garage to retrieve my bike and ride home I started getting a bit nervous.  You know, the nervous you feel when you walk down lane 87 at Target parking lot instead of lane 86 and you can’t find your car?  You know the feeling that “it finally happened and I am a victim of grand theft auto without Lojak”.  So … the butterflies start.

I turn the corner and spot my bike.  Whew, and then as I entered the locker there is a yellow slip of paper tucked into the handlebars.  Oh no! (said like Mike Birbiglia)

The two thoughts I have are that the building maintenance people have tagged my bike for removal and I am going to have to go to them and explain the situation.  I realized that the paper was not official looking so my mind then thought, well, a fellow biker is getting all agro on me about taking up a space.  I take the note, open it and find this …

Nia's Note

This was such a wonderful find.  I love when this stuff happens.  I really feel connected to my network of community.  Just so you know, I am that guy that bought the bike, and I do admit that I am a friend of Bruce Cormack’s (grin).

Nia, if you are surfing the web and happen to find this post, thank you so much for making my day, my week, and possibly my month.  I dream of a day when our lives are filled with little yellow scraps of wonder, just like this one.

So, that is my story.  I hope to be off my deadline soon and look forward to sharing more with you. Take care all.

Shim Grid (photo by cca)

Rigorous process often emerges as pure visual delight.  This work of art was neither designed nor intended yet the results speak volumes.  Add the dimension of willfulness and now you are really getting somewhere.  Enjoy.

Things imerge when you look.  Things like this.  Words to come, but for now, pictures

Blue Bolt (photo by cca)

Light-Snow (photo by cca)

Although 2009 has begun vastly better than 2008, it still has not afforded me any time to write.  I have a couple of interesting posts on deck.  Lets hope that the baseball metaphor is not an omen of when I will get to posting some thoughts.  For now, I hope you enjoy my favorite image of this winter, thus far.

The tradition continues.  Kristina came by and we went out and picked up our tree, set it up, and put our decorations on it.   We then had a lovely dinner and spent the night listening to “Clara’s Dream“.  Of course we could not have picked a better day.   It also snowed for the first time of the year, and we got our first Christmas card.  I hope your holidays start out as lovely as ours has.

It's raining christmas (cca)

Wine and Tree (cca)

Oh, such a good question.  One I have been asking myself for a couple of weeks now.  I guess I knew this would happen.  I knew that the Blog would suffer moments of drought.  This is due mostly to my nature of being a singular focus kind of fellow. 

The easy answer of course would be to say that I have been working hard but that only tells about half the story.  The other half  should probably remain unwritten, not because it is too private or personal, but that it would seem trivial and complaint ridden if I went into “where have I been”.  

The best I can do is to show you what I have been working on lately.  I have eluded to a design project I have been working on lately, and in the last 5 weeks the project has really come to life and gotten a personality of its own.  Funny how that happens.  When I am the designer of a project I tend to feel more caretakerly than I do godly.  What I mean by that is that some designers can mold and shape reality into incredibly willful images and forms.  I am thinking of people like Thom Mayne, Rem Koolhaas, (thanks Bjorni, for the spellcheck) and maybe even Renzo Piano to a lesser degree (lesser degree because I get a sense that Renzo’s work is less about personal will but a love of craft).  These people seem to have complete and total control of the design and will it into existence with whatever their super power is.  

I, however, am a nanny.  I am a shepard, coach, a hand holder.  I like to say that my process of design is much like someone doing Judo.  I assess the momentum that the design project builds and I use that momentum to nudge, and coax and massage a larger idea into clear existence.  That momentum might be existing context, client temperament, budget constraints, office personality, and a myriad of different outside cues.   I do not have that “thing” that those other have.  Maybe it’s talent, no, scratch that, it IS that I don’t have THAT kind of talent, but it is also that I do not choose to impose anything I have to say on the world.  

This is all in opposition to the greatest design lesson I have learned to date.  I was working with a very good principle in charge of design, Miltos Catamaris, at Ellenzweig Associates and he pounded home this concept.  He said, “As an architect you must impose your will on the building, or else it will design itself, and at that point you have lost control and ceased being a designer.”  If this does not sound important to you, read it again until it does, because it is.  This changed my life and I feel that I still act on this concept every day, but, what about the Judo?  Where does that come in?

I like playing with the puzzle pieces put in front of me and making something wonderful and connected, and contextual out of the pieces.  Thus design jobs like RIT happen.  I am pleased with the direction but the designer in me, two months ago, would have looked at how the job looks today and probably said, “whoever designed this wasn’t trying hard enough”.  Uhg, that makes me ill to even write but could it be the truth?  Could it be that I am simply not willful enough?  Am I letting all the other things take over and guide me instead of me guiding it?

The bigger question I must ask myself is this.  Is their a line between being contextual, and connective, and designing in an interwoven way, and compromising ones design integrity?

What do you all think out there?  I know I am just touching on these subjects lightly but I am interested in your opinion (context) so that I can reach the truth (design) in my own head.  Please use the comment function below.

So much has been going on these days and so little time to attend to writing.  Since writing is a hobby, it unfortunately takes a bit of a back seat to many things  These days Suzanne and I have been working a ton, dealing with our back porches in the state of near collapse, and you know, all the myriad of things that happens during normal life, times ten.  I have a number of things I want to commit to the blog on deck including the continuation of some short stories, a bit on architecture, a bit about the election, and maybe some images of what I have been working too hard on lately.  Stick with me folks, I want to keep this up so don’t lose faith in my yet.

Take care fo yourselves.

Yes, a post on why I hate the comments function of news websites is coming.  A coworker of mine actually asked me when I will stop making silly references to this issue and actually write something.  Well, I want to, and need to, but I need the time to sit and make a careful rhetorical argument.  At the moment I am just trying to keep my pencil moving and keep drawing. (We have another presentation at RIT next week).  

I do have a good example of what happens when comment sections get out of hand.  Pollster.com has a comments function and it seems it’s visitors have been behaving badly.  Mark Blumenthal the creator of Pollster.com just had to suspend the comments function because, in his words, 

“ I do not understand why the adults who use this site and comment on it cannot find a way to act like adults”

I concur Mark.  I really do.

If you want to read Marks thoughtful post, please feel free to read it HERE.

Now, having said all of this, I would encourage anyone’s comments here.  This is not a serious place, this is a playground and I encourage everyone to post comments when they like something, hate, something, agree, disagree, or are just bored and just want to chat.  I am sure I will never have 1000 comments a day to sift through so do not take this rant to mean I do not want to hear from you, here.  

So, having said that, please comment, but try not to call me a socialist terrorist. (read Mark’s post to understand this reference)