Smart Technology

It has been my tendency not to discuss products on my blog.  However, there have been some recent products that I believe are especially pertinent to other ideas on this blog.  So for this particular entry I have decided to discuss them.

Aside from all the iProducts (iPhone, iPod, iPad, etc) there has been an increase in talk about smart transportation options.  These include cars and bikes that drive themselves.  (For some reason the idea of a bike driving itself is a bit more strange to me than a car.)  There are a variety of potential problems that occur when things are taken out of user control.  For example, in the Doctor Who episode entitled "The Sontaran Stratagem," the cars can drive themselves using a system called Atmos and end up being programmed from an off-site location to drive individuals into the water, ensuing in their eventual death.    This is a similar problem that I have brought up repeatedly with architectural design.  When architectural design neglects to include the user a variety of problems arise, such as outlined with the University of Chicago's Mansuetto library addition.  There seems to be a thin line between creating products that allow for more simplicity in our lives, on the one hand, and taking control away from the user.  To give some other examples apparently when the garage door opener was first put into place there was no way to designate the opener to a specific garage.  Therefore when one pressed the opener while driving up to the driveway one might accidentally open the neighbor's garage door.  This causes issues with security.  Similar issues with security have been discussed more recently with the idea that one's smartphone can control medical devices.  As this article states

“[Increasingly,] a smartphone links patients’ bodies and doctors’ computers, which in turn are connected to the Internet, which in turn is connected to any smartphone anywhere. The new devices could put the management of an individual’s internal organs, in the hands of every hacker, online scammer, and digital vandal on Earth.” [...]"

The idea that some hacker could screw up my relative's next surgery is relatively petrifying to me.

In discussing the user once again I must pause this time to explain, as it was recently brought to my attention, that I do not believe all users are at fault for not having control over their environments.  I understand that most users interact with environments that they have no control over designing or developing.  I believe this to be a problem that architects should try to rectify.  Obviously in the current state of things not everyone has the means to hire an architect nor the means to have control over their environment.  I believe these things should change.

An additional point that this discussion brings up is the ever-growing definition of design.  Just from the examples given above design includes transportation, medicine, architecture, telecommunication, and music, just to name a few.  As discussed in Bruno Latour's article entitled "A Cautious Prometheus?  A Few Steps toward a Philosophy of Design," "design has been extended from the details of daily objects to cities, landscapes, nations, cultures, bodies, genes, and, as I will argue, to nature itself –which is  in great need of being re-designed."  Design is clearly no longer limited to just product design.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition

I have a confession to make, I love Extreme Makeover Home Edition.  Granted it's a rather silly show.  It's organized the exact same way every time, aside from the family (that obviously changes every episode) you see one episode you've seen them all (kind of like a Bollywood film but that's a totally different ball game).  I love the idea of giving a family in need a house.  However, there are some things that I have always worried about.  First of all, finances.  It seems like there are some episodes where they end up paying off the mortgage and others where they don't mention it.  I would like to think that the episodes where they don't mention it the reason is because the family didn't have a mortgage to pay to begin with and therefore they are just being given the house for free.  Does this then mean the construction team is designing and building the house for charity?  Also, what happens to utilities?  Several houses are net zero houses where the house has solar panels, rain water collection areas, etc so that the utilities are already paid for.  But there are houses where this isn't the case.  These houses must have utility bills that are much higher than what the family is used to paying for.  These financial questions make me wonder what percentage of families who have been on this show still have these homes?

My second issue is with children's rooms.  Children's rooms in these houses are often totally decked out.  The kid loves trains, for example, so they design a train in the middle of the room with a child's bed built into it.  Only problem is the kid is 5.  The kid isn't going to be 5 forever.  So what happens when the child grows up?  Why not make a room that is a little more suitable to growing children, like the parents rooms tend to be?

Finally I am concerned with these houses in relation to Not So Big House (which I know I have been discussing a lot recently).  Many of the families on this show are large families living in small spaces.  They share rooms, often times with many individuals in the same room.  When the design team comes along and builds the family a new home, they often design one where every individual in the family has their own room.  This astounds the family as they've often never had their own room.  However, I believe this could also cause a psychological problem.  Now they have a house with rooms that are not used, and can go long periods of time (unlike the old house) and not see anyone.  This could cause problems of loneliness.  So instead of building such a large home for the family why not build a functioning Not So Big House, which would be much more suitable for the family and probably cause them less culture shock (moving from the old to new house)?

Back to School - Alternative Practices

Two days ago I happened upon a new book that just came out, in direct relation to my first class of the semester tonight with entitled Alternative Practice, entitled Future Practice.  As mentioned in the blurb, this is a book regarding the variety of directions individuals take after receiving training in architecture.  As mentioned, "year after year, as new graduates embark on their careers, more and more of them are questioning the traditional role of the architect, even before working in a firm or taking other supposedly required steps toward licensure."  This seems almost identical to the description of Alternative Practices, a course that "offers students the opportunity to investigate the range of emerging career roles in architecture and allied fields, including both shifting opportunities within "traditional" practice as well as the broad range of career choices that can usefully build on a foundation in architecture."  Indeed upon forwarding the blurb to my advisor I discovered that articles from the author are often used in her class and she looks forward to reading the book, as do I as soon as it comes out.

This book does not, however, deal with how to set up a non-traditional firm, advice that might be referenced in a course I'm currently waitlisted for entitled Launching Design Practices.  Interestingly enough, as the blurb points out, these alternative practices (so to speak) are rooted in one primary concern: "the various practitioners want to improve conditions for people."  This is something that I too share with these practitioners, though, as I point out time and again, I wish to incorporate this into all facets of architecture, not just the smaller firms or the non-profit organizations.  It will be interesting to find how this class, and the book in the future, affect my currently naive outlook on architecture and architects in general.

Everlasting Not So Big House?

As we ring in the new year, online Architectural websites post a variety of articles on 2012 including the "Buzz-worthy Buildings of 2012" many of which were in China including the Dalian International Conference Center where I used to live in Dalian, China.  Looking through these articles I happened upon one that seemed particularly interesting on Endangered Buildings We Hope Make it through 2013.  Many of these buildings were used for their original purpose only for brief periods of time before being abandoned and vandalized, including The Casa sobre el Arroyo by Amancio Williams, National Art Schools by Ricardo Porro, and works by Frank Lloyd Wright.  As someone who used to work as an interpreter for the Robie House in Hyde Park I feel I have a unique understanding of this dilemma.  Many of these buildings are amazing works of art, like beautiful portraits which Frank Lloyd Wright compared the Robie House to as he tried to save it from demolition.  On the other hand these buildings were totally useless for their original intent.  The Robie House, for example, had a basement that flooded and close to no storage space whatsoever, these are just two examples of the lists of reasons I can see for these buildings to no longer be wanted as anything else aside from a Historic Landmark.

The fact that these uniquely designed buildings are now endangered makes me question the designing of unique buildings.  In constructing a Not So Big House as opposed to a house that looks very similar in many ways to that of its neighbors does one diminish the opportunity for such a house to be resold?  Is one not simply increasing the likelihood that such a building would be torn down in order to be built to someone else's needs?  Should we, like was being done in Dalian when I left, construct buildings that won't last longer than 10 years in order that they can be built to a certain user's needs and then changed for another user?

Yet at the same time I suppose buildings, just like any other artifact, become endangered all the time and it is more important to focus on other aspects, such as the quality of material.  One rather common place material that has recently been changed is concrete.  The prevalence of this material makes it necessary to find ways to use less of it in more efficient ways, as such individuals have done recently.

Philadelphia Museum of Art Experience

I've been to a large number of museums in my time, throughout Asia, Europe and the US.  But throughout these museums I've never experienced one like the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  It is not uncommon for a museum to decorate its walls like the below image that I took at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

This image may at first glance appear to include elements of Trompe-l'œil, "art technique involving realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions."  However, this is not an optical illusion.  One can actually walk into the next room and around the columns seen below.

It is also not uncommon for rooms of a museum to be decorated in a certain way.  For example, walking through a Frank Lloyd Wright home and having part of it roped off as it displays the look of the original room with objects and furniture in it somewhat like the below image of a Chinese building, which I have seen many versions of (though all in Asia).

It is also not uncommon to see replicas of rooms (like the above) or individuals, similar to a wax museum.  I do question how some of these elements are included.  For example, was the below image built into the walls when the museum was originally constructed?  Or was it added as a later renovation?  Or what?  I also seem to be unable to find much literature written on these aspects of the museum.

However, one thing that I can say I have never seen is a building inside another building.  The Philadelphia Museum of Art is home to the tea house of architect Ögi Rodö which originally stood on the grounds of the architect's private residence in Tokyo.  It was sold to the museum in 1928 and installed in 1957, complete with growing bamboo and flowing water.

This is no replica.  It is the actual original architecture of a tea house within an art museum, which is amazing to me.  While none of these elements is unique in and of itself the combination of all of these elements within the museum gave me a museum experience truly unlike any other.  This is an experience that allows one to "Travel to the far east and around the world without leaving Philadelphia."  The experience moved me almost to tears as I recalled all of the places I had been in my travels like these.  Along with these architectural elements the museum had collections of Picasso, Manet, Monet, Renoir, and Van Gogh as well as Contemporary Modern Art and a collection of Arms and Armory.  This museum truly has something for everyone and I would definitely recommend it as an experience for everyone.  (Note: All images included here were taken by myself.)

One-Stall Restrooms

This is actually a post that I wrote back in August, 2011 but I apparently didn't post it.  So I am posting it now.

The last time I, a cis- (not transgendered) female, went into a multi-stall men’s restroom was on occasion as a small child when the only person to take care of me was my father.  On the other hand, to this day I often choose to frequent one-stall men’s restrooms.  What’s the point in standing in a long line outside the designated women’s restroom when the men’s restroom is no different and is designed for only one individual at a time?  Why not just use the men’s restroom?  Aside from the occasional strange look one may receive when exiting the one stall to find a male waiting to use the room, who honestly cares?

So far this may seem to be a gender-related issue.  However, this is also a disability-related issue.  In June of 2011, I visited a restaurant called Tasty Dog in Oak Park, Illinois with my family.  As the daughter of a wheelchair-bound mother with Multiple Sclerosis, I immediately recognized the wheelchair accessible entrance and found a table where my mother could join the friends that my parents were in town visiting.  Thinking wheelchair accessibility to no longer be a problem for the venue, I relaxed and went about the daily routine of eating a meal with my family.  We went up to the counter to order something to eat, sat down and had a great conversation with our friends.  We ended up sitting and chatting so long that my mother eventually had to use the restroom, again not surprising.  I walked to the one-stall bathroom to open the door for my mother and see if she needed my help.  She did not, so I left her to use the restroom in privacy.  Soon there was a female standing outside the door waiting for my mother to finish using the restroom, my father suggested that I let her know that it might be better for her to use the men’s so I went over and told the woman.  She was very kind, thanked me for the information and used the men’s room.  This happened several times until I met with a disgruntled woman who refused to use the men’s and insisted on waiting for the women’s room.  Despite my warning and explanation to the woman, she became upset with me and went to the restaurant employees to complain about my mother.  Soon the employee came out to investigate the matter herself, I again explained that my mother was handicapped and often needed a longer period of time to use the restroom.  Fortunately, the employee understood and explained to the customer that she would have to wait.  Of all the years my mother has been handicapped I have never experienced such animosity over a simple matter.  What would have happened had the employee not understood?  I do not even want to think about the embarrassment this may have caused my mother.  It is from these experiences and my own personal experiences in both men’s and women’s one stall restrooms that leads me to implore owners to reconsider labeling one stall restrooms with gender neutral signs.  If one is in need of a sign at all for these rooms, please consider the family signs or signs for both men and women that one can often get from the same locations.

Architectural Drawing

One issue that I have with architectural drawing was mentioned briefly in a recent article from the Journal of Architectural Education entitled On Obeying the Rules by Michael Webb.  The first paragraph of this article is especially interesting to me.  The author states "We, the survivors of architecture school curricula, are all too familiar with the syntax that applies to the making of orthographic projection drawings. We follow a universally accepted set of conventions that, when applied, makes drawings easier to read—at least by other survivors. For example, the section and the elevation are to be placed above the plan, not beneath it; or lines defining the edge of a plane should be stronger than those not defining the edge.  But if the depiction of motion, that fluctuating concern of architects since the Futurist movement, is what we would wish to represent in our drawings, then a relentless adherence to those conventions results in the drawing becoming not easier to read, but interestingly difficult."  In other words, while these universally accepted set of conventions allow the drawings to be easier to read by individuals who have gone through the architectural school curricula, they make it more difficult for others, including users and clients, to read.  From the few architectural drawings that I have been exposed to it is not the organization of drawings on the page or heaviness of a line that makes it difficult to read.  Instead it is the lack of labeling and legends or keys.  For example, if one were to look at a graph the legend labels what each color corresponds to.  This is often understood by architects such that the legend is entirely left out.  If these elements were included it might make the drawing more understandable.

After publishing this entry a friend pointed out that I neglected to mention that just like architectural writing, audience is important to architectural drawing.  One must write or draw to one's audience.  If the audience is other architects than it's totally fine for drawings to lack labels, legends and such.  If, however, the audience is non-designers of some sort than labels may be more important.

Architecture in the Digital Age in Brief

Looking through recent articles in the NY Times and speaking with friends getting their MArchs, it seems that the concept of architecture within the digital age is one that has been at the surface of many conversations recently.  At first glance the topic seems to be of little interest to me personally.  However, I question how the move to architecture in the digital realm is affecting the value of architects.  Due to the fact that architecture is so focused on being defined solely as design, the prevalence of software programs like AutoCAD seems like a possible issue.  If architects are indeed moving away from freehand drawing and towards solely using these programs, are they indeed working to make themselves more redundant?  What is the difference between an artist or individually creatively designing a building with the use of AutoCAD and an architect?

Response to "Why Don't We Read About Architecture"

Why Don't We Read About Architecture? is an interesting article that speaks largely to many of the aspects I wish to address within my dissertation.  Author Allison Arieff begins the article by pointing out our role as users of architecture.  As users of architecture our role is not often included amongst the current architectural, design, or construction process.  Currently buildings are designed by architects, or others in construction fields (developers, engineers, designers, etc) in combination with a client.  In other entries I have spoken to the complications that not including users in this process has created, for example with the Mansueto Library. 

Instead of including user functionality, as Arieff later mentions it should, architecture is currently understood primarily in an economic context.  As Arieff explains, "architecture is conveyed as little more than something that costs a lot and causes a lot of grief, rather than something with the potential to enhance our daily lives."  I believe this can be traced back to the fact that architecture is currently defined by education as little more than an art as opposed to being something that can affect social changes and, as she mentions, enhance our daily lives in more than just its design.  Currently architecture seems to be attempting to fight its premise.  With the definition of architecture that the current education system embraces, architecture is not much different from other forms of art that, according to Arieff, "need only please or provoke its audience."  What the current architectural education system should do is embrace the fact that architecture must include user functionality and other business aspects like LEED certification to be valuable.

Arieff points out that another way to make architecture more valuable is by returning to "Bold, opinionated, thoughtful words" with strong architectural critics who act "not just as writers but as advocates."  This is as opposed to the way architecture is currently spoken about, which is almost completely unintelligible, noting that "Indecipherability signifies superior intelligence".  As a recent graduate of the University of Chicago I, like the author, can attest to this fact.  At the University of Chicago I was often surrounded by individuals speaking in what often seemed to me to be indecipherable ways.  Many of these individuals didn't understand the necessity to "dumb down their speech" as this was "condescending" to those they spoke to.  As a friend mentioned recently there are two problems with this kind of language.  The first is that it can often be entirely indecipherable even to the author, looking back on such writing years later.  The second is that when decipherable, the language is often so full of jargon that only others in the same field can understand what is being said.  This makes the writing, or speech, often only understood by a very small audience.  In order to diversify and allow for these, often brilliant ideas, to be expressed to a larger audience the University of Chicago has a very well-known class entitled the Little Red Schoolhouse.  This is a course in which individuals are taught how to write.  It does not, however, teach individuals how to use better grammar.  Instead the course teaches one how to write with a specific audience in mind.  This includes taking emphasis off nouns, which Arieff points out as "hallmarks of a pretentious ass" and on to stronger verbs.  For example, the piece which Arieff points out as difficult to understand has no verb "ANALYSIS: a territorial and social fragmentation, a typical “no-man’s land” undergoing the urban exodus, the settlement of the old and inactive persons, the absence of public place in the body scale substituted by the car."

Opinion of Not So Big House

I realized this morning that my entry last night came without an opinion of Susanka's Not So Big House.  While a description of a book tends to go in Readings Along These Lines I think it pertinent to explain this particular book here.  As I mentioned in my last entry, "To explain, the basic idea of the book is to minimize unused space in a house.  For example, a typical house may come with a dining room and parlor room.  After following Susanka's methodology of recording spaces one spends the most time in and one feels the most comfortable in one, may discover that the dining room is nothing but wasted space." While I have not yet read the book in its entirety, the premise behind this particular methodology sounds wonderful to me.  Following such methodology would allow for differences in culture and even differences from individual to individual within the same culture.  In my mind this is how architecture should be, though it is interesting to think of such a concept in relation to the reselling of houses, which I am curious to see how Susanka approaches. 

To me this is much more ideal than the concept of universal architecture, one which I absolutely appall and is used by several famous architects like Mies van der Rohe.  The idea of universal architecture is to create a building which could be placed in Santa Fe, NM; Mexico City; Atlanta, GA; Dubai; Dalian, China; or in a bubble on the moon.  The site does not make any difference at all.  This concept is fairly absurd to me as it means that a building comes void of the culture of the area and that culture doesn't change built artifacts.

Based on this analysis, the fact that my family's friend paid enough attention to architecture to include any elements from Susanka's book is very impressive to me.  To include elements from such a book, shows that one has good taste and a good approach to built form.

Critiquing a version of the Not So Big House

We read excerpts from Sarah Susanka's book entitled Not So Big House (a great book which I look forward to reading in its entirety soon) for a class I took this past semester.  Strangely enough after the semester ended I went home for winter break only to find that the house my father's friend has been working on building for years is designed after ideas from the book.  The house has been completed recently, with some landscaping changes still in the process, and we got to take a tour.  The following are some ideas I had in comparing the house to the book.

Approaching the house from the long winding driveway through the woods, it doesn't appear to be very different from many other houses.  And it comes complete with some of the same aspects one may have seen in magazines like Dwell, the faucet that turns on with a touch, the porch awning that retracts with a button, the pond with a small walking bridge over it, the outdoor patio with built in grill, and blinds operated with a switch.

However, it also blends in some aspects from the book.  To explain, the basic idea of the book is to minimize unused space in a house.  For example, a typical house may come with a dining room and parlor room.  After following Susanka's methodology of recording spaces one spends the most time in and one feels the most comfortable in one, may discover that the dining room is nothing but wasted space.  Similarly this house doesn't have high ceilings, as they create nothing but wasted space.  It also has an open kitchen / eating / living room area which increases the chances of the space being used.  However, it does have an extra dining room, a mini kitchen on the second floor, an extra full bath above the garage, and a dumb waiter which only goes between the second and third floors instead of the first and third.  It also has a couple small corner spaces which I have no idea how they would be used and are not currently being used, for example directly behind the front door if opened at a 90 degree angle.  Based on Susanka's suggestions I question how often these aspects are actually used.  I also question the architect himself on the elevator, which is very small and has the entrances on the first and second floor perpendicular to each other so that one has to turn in the elevator to get out, a maneuver that is very difficult to do depending on the size of the wheelchair.

 The house also makes me question what Susanka's approach is to guest rooms.  Clearly they are spaces one wouldn't use unless guests are around and as such may be seen as unnecessary.  But, as one can see from Eisenman's House VI (a house entirely void of guest rooms, among many aspects), they are definitely important spaces (as one usually does have guests at some point in time).  Strangely enough one aspect which reminds me in some ways of House VI and that the owner spoke of as needing to change is the lack of door between the master bathroom and the toilets.

There are many elements to this house that I personally adore.  Despite the architect's objections, the main client (the female partner) insisted on having arches incorporated into the house.  The front door creates an archway when open, there is one leading to the bathroom above the garage, and one between the second floor and a spiral staircase leading to the third floor.  I love these arches and the personality they bring to the house.  It makes the front door almost seems hobbit-like.  I love the outdoor sleeping space built into the second floor of the porch and the view from the third floor.  I also have a somewhat unexplainable admiration for spiral staircases.  I'm not sure about the placement of the workout room, currently located above the garage.  However, I definitely want a workout room if I ever get a chance to build my own house, though it would include a squat rack and bench press along with the treadmill and eliptical that this house has.  I also love the inclusion of a urinal as well as a typical western seated toilet in the master bathroom.  In my personal house I may include a squat toilet as well, especially after having read that the seated toilet is more troublesome on the bowels.  Additionally an aspect that my boyfriend has commented on desiring is secret passageways through the house.  Though this particular house does not have such elements it does have a closet and fridge hidden by certain elements, the closet blending in to the wall and the fridge into the cabinets.  It also has crawl spaces above the garage, which my father mentioned playing in as a child.  But this is speaking much more to a personal level.

Just to note this passage was written from ideas I have from only reading excerpts of the book.  My ideas may change after reading the entirety of the book, we'll have to see.

Review of my Research Ideas

I seem to have a strong tendency to do things in waves.  I'll exercise for a while and then stop for a while and then go back into exercising.  Blogging is apparently the same way.  Though I will try to keep it up for a little while.  Just as a brief update since I last wrote I applied to PhD programs in Architecture, got into two, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne and University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.  Decided to go to the later as I was told the professors had more in common with the line of work I was interested in and they had a better deal for me.  Just completed my first semester in the PhD program and now I'm applying for a dual degree with an MBA.

What exactly am I interested in researching?  Part of this has been repeated over the blog entries that I wrote in here but since the wording of it seems to change over time as I get better at explaining it and it may have changed a little I will review.

The following is a little blurb I wrote after meeting with an employee (of my family's company) the other day.

Professions focus on teaching their discipline as an art, the art of medicine, the art of law, or the art of design, just to name a few.  Since the shift away from apprenticeships and towards teaching professions in an academic environment, learning the art of business has been lost to some extent.  More recently many architecture programs have started to require students to take one business course entitled Professional Practice, a crash course on business with one week per topic for example one week on finance, one on marketing, one on strategy, etc.  I believe that these professions would be even more successful with a more developed integration of business throughout all aspects of their program.  This would require a change in the education system away from the current design-as-centerpoint, a term created by my advisor Linda Groat, towards a more integrated education system.  This new system would teach an architect how to be a better project manager, how to be a better team leader, and how to better communicate with clients of similar or vastly different cultures.  With such knowledge in architecture an architect would become a more valuable commodity, having the ability to help the engineer speak to the construction manager or the interior designer, and understanding the needs of the client more.  Similarly if such knowledge was taught in medicine, doctors would be better versed not only in how to speak to a patient but how to treat a patient.  Ideally I would like to teach this knowledge to architects, but if I, for whatever reason, am unable to get a position as an architecture professor I wouldn't mind teaching this to another profession either as a business professor or in some other field.  I also wouldn't be surprised if such a career comes hand in hand with consulting for firms that would like to use this method to make their firm more successful, or their clinic, or whatever field the business may be in.

MA-PhD programs shift and the connection between Anthropology and Architecture

I finally finished all my work for the University of Chicago master's program and am just waiting to graduate this Saturday. Very exciting indeed. In the meantime I have started looking at PhD programs in architecture. It seems that there are a very small number of programs that have a cultural component to them, including the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne and with a somewhat different program, North Carolina State University. At least those are the programs that I have found so far. Right now I am also working on a possible dissertation topic, of which I'm leaning towards doing a historical look at social factors in architecture from the late 1940s to today. Unlike the University of California at Berkeley's Conference entitled Death and Life of Social Factors, I do not believe that social factors have in any way died in architecture, just morphed. Moreover I am curious as to why social factors seem to have this slow change in architecture as opposed to the growth that other design fields have seen over the same time period.

While looking into these PhD programs I have been reading a really interesting book called the Fountainheadache: The Politics of Architecture-Client Relations by Andy Pressman which I will be writing a critique of once I am finished (this may be a while as my parents are coming into town on Thursday and I'm leaving for New Jersey next week).

Throughout my reading and looking into PhD programs my meetings have started up again. I have a meeting very shortly with Avigail Sachs and have started taking a class at IIT entitled Mapping Neighborhoods with Monica Chadha. After class yesterday Monica and I got together to discuss anthropology's role in architecture. As with everyone I have spoken to thus far, Monica agrees that as an anthropologist I have a lot to contribute to the field of architecture. She was explaining to me that while there are individuals who teach at the college level with no PhD in Architecture it very much makes sense for me to get my PhD as I do not wish to be a practicing architect. Unfortunately there has been some question recently as to whether my program at the University of Chicago will support me in my PhD decisions, as they (like most who aren't architects) do not entirely understand the connection. However, I am hoping to change their mind in yet another meeting discussing my intentions with the program director.

Also in our meeting Monica and I discussed two distinct connections between anthropology and architecture. One is the community development which a section of architects have started pursuing, groups like Public Architecture, Rural Studio, Design Build Bluff, etc. Similarly, Monica's class at IIT gets me involved with how anthropology helps architects look at an area from the neighborhood level, a level that is very familiar to many anthropologists. However there is an entirely different segment of architecture which I also wish to embrace, that is the traditional practice of architecture. This is an area of architecture which architects do not typically understand the connection to anthropology in the beginning. This is the area which I wish to train architects to be better at, and more valued in, the work that they already do. I do not wish to change the traditional practice of architecture at all. In fact I only wish to make it stronger by teaching methods that architects need to use in the practice already, which strangely enough are not taught in MArch or BArch (Masters in Architecture or Bachelors in Architecture) programs, such as interviewing, observation, working with peoples of different cultures and possibly even business techniques. In order to get more involved in this I believe my first step must be to shadow an architect.

Buckner Companies HQ in Graham

A new article in the Chapel Hill Herald regarding the Buckner Companies Headquarters in Graham left me puzzled. The article's title emphasizes the award that the Carrboro-based firm received but it never in fact even mentions the name of the award. The article itself is entirely based on the benefits the building has for Buckner Companies' owners and staff. However, and this may be where journalism differs from anthropology, the entire article is based on one interview done with the owner of the building, Doug Williams. Not one other individual is quoted throughout the entire article. That is astonishing to me! As an anthropologist, the thought of an article that is based on one interview alone being acceptable to my professors is totally unheard of, unless you are explicitly stating that it is, in fact, based on one interview (which this article does not).

With this in mind it is almost impossible for me to agree with Williams or not. If his staff in fact agree with his comments and the comments of the author of this article, that the building is "a haven for employees, a favorite gathering place for community groups, an alluring recruitment tool for prospective employees and a draw for client firms who now want to meet here while staying in Chapel Hill instead of bringing Buckner associates to their states" then this building seems to have, in fact, been designed for the user. However, in actuality there is no telling from the article whether this is truly the case or not, as none of those users have been interviewed or any of the members of the aforementioned groups.

If one is as curious as I am about why the building received the award, which is not discussed in this article, ArchDaily discusses some of the reasons why it might have received the award. From the Herald's article one would think that Buckner Companies received the one and only architecture award (which of course there is many). The award itself is discussed in another article, it is entitled Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association Environmental award and Buckner Companies is the first winner of the award along with another building for a NY company entitled Skanska USA Building, Inc.

Cute Architecture Joke

A nice little architecture joke to brighten your morning. I do wonder where female architects fit into the picture though.

Mansueto Library

The person across from me just excused himself to leave and go sit elsewhere in the new Mansueto library, due to the fact that he was being blindsided by the sun reflecting off the whiteness of his pages. The woman sitting in that same seat before him had her sunglasses on. Yet I have decided to continue squinting at my computer screen as the black of my laptop becomes hotter and hotter. This place was not designed for the user. I am a mere 5 foot 2 inches, on a good day, and yet, in order to type on my keyboard in a way that is comfortable and typical for my hands, I have to sit slouched in the chair. This place may look cool, and indeed it does look very fancy. However, I would personally prefer to sit in the older part of the library where I can see without squinting, or wearing sunglasses and do not ultimately end my time with a massive backache from slouching. This may sound like a complaint, and indeed it is. In order to design a fully functioning space that works for the user these are issues that need to be addressed from the beginning, so one does not end up with these kinds of problems.

It seems from this video that the architects for this particular space did a wonderful job with it as far as technology goes, and even as far as the library's needs are concerned. However, once again the user was left out of the equation. Fortunately there are few users for this space, only the first floor of the dome actually has space for users to study or work.

Why not get your MArch?

Yesterday I met with an architect who works for the Chicago Architecture Foundation. During our meeting she asked me a question that took me by surprise. "Why not just get your MArch?" She continued to explain that by getting my MArch I would have all the practical knowledge of an architect and be able to teach with this knowledge. At the time the only answer I had was with the gut reaction that it was impossible for me to do everything. However, now that I've thought about it more there's more to it than that. It's not just that in order to teach architects I would have to get the MArch, on top of the MA I will already have, followed by a PhD. In fact it has little to do with the length of time. Practically speaking I think it extremely important to work in a firm and/or organization that works with architecture (like the Chicago Architecture Foundation). On the other hand I don't think it necessary to become an architect in order to teach architects. There are architect professors who are highly respected that have just gone out and gotten their PhDs.

Aside from this I think it extremely important for architects to be able to work with people with ideas from other fields in order to embrace their ultimate interdisciplinary goal. As the profession stands right now, architects are taught just this exact point, if you don't have an MArch then you don't understand enough to contribute to the overall goal. I think this is extremely problematic, to say the least. I think, in fact, that having some people at the table who aren't architects forces those who are architects to put things in simpler non-design terms which the client and user understands. However in addition to this after getting my PhD in architecture I will not be just an academic anthropologist with no understanding of architecture. Finally I think it important to note that this idea that non-architects have nothing to teach or contribute to architects may be one of the reasons for some of the complications the field is currently facing.

Maybe this is also a reaction coming from the gut but being an architect already requires one to work with many who known very little about architecture (interior designers, engineers, industrial designers, etc.). What's the addition of one more, who hopes to gain much of that knowledge about architecture?

I think in the end there's one last key to why I shouldn't get my MArch, that is that I want to teach other architects. I don't just want to work for one firm and make that one firm more user-friendly in the way they do architecture. I want to help architects in general and the only way to do that is to teach. The only way to teach architects is to get a PhD, anything that stops short of that will not allow me to teach or will further prolong the time it will take for me to teach.

Housing as Habitus

Known throughout the world as the largest and most luxurious of hotel suites, the Royal Penthouse Suite covers a grand 1680 m2 surface area of the hotel's highest floor. It is unique in terms of luxury and comfort and guarantees a maximum security level. The suite is complete with 12 rooms, 12 bathrooms, Billiards, Steinway grand piano, Fitness center, private elevator and private terrace. Moreover it is one of the first suites in Europe to feature a Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 4-103 flat screen and audio installation. (Royal Penthouse)

Entrance through the kitchen from the back porch of the building, the latter room equipped with an old-fashioned and battered coal range, a bare kitchen table, dirty sink, soiled shades, and dingy curtains . . . floor bare of any covering at all. Off the kitchen an equally dirty bedroom with little in it but a bed swathed in dirty sheets and quilts. The room small and crowded, even with its single pieces of furniture. Second bedroom also crowded . . . combined living-room and dining-room barely affords space for standing when the day-bed is opened, since the rest of the space is taken by a dilapidated duofold, a small table, and two chairs. These four rooms house two parents and five children. (Drake, 580)

These two descriptions are so sharply distinct that it is almost difficult to understand that they are both describing living situations. The first for someone who can afford to pay for this kind of room while on vacation and the second of a family that can barely afford a house at all. In the following paper I wish to first lay out descriptions of what Pierre Bourdieu refers to as the pure and popular aesthetic, respectively. I then will explain how, through experience, memory, time and reinforcement, habitus is learned with regard to housing. Finally I will take a brief detour to show ways in which the family and the economic class itself reinforces habitus through Goffman’s terms of front and face.

As we saw with Drake’s description above, for lower class housing fulfills a dire necessity, it is a part of the popular aesthetic. Despite the fact that lower class individuals living in Bronzeville during the Depression through to the Second World War were only renting tiny kitchenettes for $8 a week or even as cheap as $8 a week for three rooms, they often lived with a large number of people for “the larger the household the greater the chance that somebody might find a job” (Drake, 581). This obvious lack of finances allows us to see the functional role these kitchenettes fulfilled. There was no understanding of these kitchenettes as art. In fact, quite the opposite, individuals were often living in “squalid, crowded housing conditions” (Drake, 560). As we can see from these circumstances, “it is as if the ‘popular aesthetic’ were based on the affirmation of the continuity between art and life, which implies the subordination of form to function” (Bourdieu, 4). This subordination comes with an equal desire for quantity over quality. One particular lower class resident comments on the desire for increased quantity when commenting, “their flats are better than ours, but they pay three and four times as much as we do” (Drake, 579). Those of the popular aesthetic desire more space and privacy, but they simply do not have enough money to pay for the larger spaces.

On the other extreme, those of the pure aesthetic are clearly far from concerned about money. Instead of quantity these individuals are looking to housing as art, form and quality. Even though upper class Bronzeville church buildings in this same time period tended to be small, they were still “very well cared for and artistically decorated” (Drake, 538). By embracing art in structures, indeed embracing architecture, the elite root themselves in “an ethos of elective distance from the necessities of the natural and social world” (Bourdieu, 5). An elective distance away from quantity and towards quality, away from the reality of housing as a necessity, to design as a surreal and more abstract understanding of structures.

This distinction between popular and pure aesthetics is so clear that it forces one to ask the question of how such a difference was formed. As I discussed in the beginning, there are four distinct ways of, in the words of Bourdieu, internalizing habitus. The first way in which we internalize habitus is through experience. Learning habitus through experience of housing is different than learning habitus for a particular kind of art. As Bourdieu explains, taste for artwork is “acquired simply by contact with works of art” (Bourdieu, 4). However, the idea of “contact” with a house is one that is much more complicated than “contact” with a painting, or any other form of art. To come into contact with a house, one must either live or visit the house, as opposed to the viewing of a painting that is much less experiential. Either way one is experiencing the house “in its reality” (Bachelard, 5) more than anything else. The experience of building as art is one which is reserved solely for the elite. This is due to the fact that in order to live or visit an artistically decorated home or structure one has to belong to the elite circles. Thus habitus is inscribed in an individual once they are born, into a family who already owns such a home or has friends who do, often both. Specifically, as Gaston Bachelard explains, it is the experience of our first house which teaches us the most. All other houses we inhabit are simply “variations on a fundamental theme” (Bachelard, 15).

The reason that this first house teaches us the most about the aesthetic of housing for Bachelard, is that it is the first space which we experience, in reality and in memory. It is this memory which is key to habitus in two distinct ways. First of all, memory is how we learn, “by means of thought and dreams” (Bachelard, 5). Secondly, memory allows the aesthetic which we have learned to remain with us. In the words of Bourdieu,

“The schemes of the habitus, the primary forms of classification, owe their specific efficacy to the fact that they function below the level of consciousness and language, beyond the reach of introspective scrutiny or control by the will” (466).

Bachelard explains this in a slightly different way, by showing how our dwelling places themselves stick with us. As Bachelard explains, “it is because our memories of former dwelling-places are relived as daydreams that these dwelling-places of the past remain in us for all time" (Bachelard, 6).

Like memory, time also plays a particular role in learning habitus. Only with time can one make enough money to pay for or inherit a home. Inheritance has a special way of teaching habitus, in the act of inheriting a home one inherits habitus along with it, like an heirloom. With the pure aesthetic comes yet another envisioning of time, as leisure time since time itself is a luxury. The more leisure time, the more time one is able to spend daydreaming within the home as well as playing “the games of culture with the playful seriousness” and maintaining “a child’s relation to the world” (Bourdieu, 54). Similarly the less time one has the less one is able to understand this child’s relation to the world through material objects like large homes and the wonders they house.

With time comes the final way of learning habitus, through reinforcement in the family. The family itself works ultimately to evaluate a child’s performance by “reinforcing what is acceptable, [and] discouraging what is not” (Bourdieu 85), in this way the family reinstates the value of a large family home. To take a fictional example, if fifth grade Billy wanted to go to his friend’s house for a playdate, but his friend lived in Bronzeville, Billy’s mother might suggest that Billy not befriend that kind of person. This might happen if, similarly, Billy’s mother went to pick Billy up from his friend’s house after school and saw that his friend lived in a shack. Billy’s mother’s response to a specific house or neighborhood would teach Billy where it was and wasn’t safe to go and socialize. In this way, by the time Billy grew up he would understand through his learned memory of habitus what kind of family he was supposed to marry into and what kind of house he should own.

Once this habitus is inscribed in us through experience and dreams, it is then expected of us by our economic class. Having a nice home allows one to do that which is expected of us by an upper class and in this way “keep up ‘front’” (Drake 668). Goffman describes front as “part of individual’s performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance” (1959, 22). Those who observe the performance of a well mannered woman in a fashionable expensive dress out at a fancy restaurant expect that person to have an equally nice artistically decorated home. If they, on the other hand, have a poor dilapidated home then they have not succeeded in keeping up their front. This idea of front is understood by Drake in Bronzeville since one way to determine one’s class is through the involvement and membership one has in particular clubs. These clubs often meet in members’ homes. If one were to lose one’s home one may ultimately lose one’s membership to a particular club and thereby lose face. Face is another term from Erving Goffman which can be understood as an instance when an individual is not keeping up front or when “information is brought forth in some way about his social worth which cannot be integrated, even with effort, into the line that is being sustained for him” (1967 Goffman, 8).

In conclusion, housing is just one of the areas of practice which Bourdieu describes when he states that, “There is no area of practice in which the aim of purifying, refining and sublimating primary needs and impulses cannot assert itself” (6). As we have seen throughout this paper, ultimately experience, memory and time create the habitus, which is reinforced by language of Goffman in the family as well as the economic class to which one belongs. This reinforced habitus orients itself in the form of two aesthetics, the pure and the popular. This can be seen one final time in the photos below.

Bibliography

Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Translated by Maria Jolas. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1958. 

Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.

Drake, St Clair, and Horace R Clayton. Black Metropolis : a Study of Negro life in a Northern City. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Goffman, Erving. Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1967.

Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1959.

"Royal Penthouse." Hotel President Wilson. Accessed April 25, 2011. http://www.hotelpwilson.com/en/rooms-and-suites/royal-penthouse-suite/.

Architecture Film Festival

Tonight was the first night for me at the Architecture and Design Film Festival and I have to say by the end I was feeling kind of let down. I think this is ultimately due to my expecting too much from the field of architecture. There were two things that contributed to my coming to these conclusions.

First, we watched a really great film called The Art and Science of Renzo Piano. Unlike several of the other films of the night this film itself was very well done. However it did not live up to my expectations of including the user. Renzo Piano did an amazing job creating a green building that wouldn't surprise me if it went way past LEED standards, or was completely unable to compete on LEED level. This is in reference to his California Academy of Sciences building. He also did a fairly good job of including the clients and their ideas on how to sell the museum to its new audience. Unfortunately as I was getting more and more entrenched in his environmental design I was realizing that, in the end, he did not speak to the user themselves.

On a similar note coming back to Bjarke Ingels, I, along with the majority of the audience, was amazed by his film My Playground. This film was extremely insightful regarding a new type of extreme sport called parkour. I had never heard of this sport before a few months ago and now there are a number of people interested in it! I was also happy to hear that he is thinking of incorporating this idea of using the exterior of his building as a social space into his next building. For his next building he will be creating a power plant with a sort of ski valley down one side. This inclusion of the exterior is far beyond the ideas of many architects. Once again my expectations were only let down in that I wished for him to bring this idea of creating social spaces and including the user into the interior as well as the exterior for I felt that the user of the interior space was left out of the equation.

As a friend of mine commented to me, these individuals are, after all, designers. We as social scientists can only expect so much of them. This is where I think I differ from her for I do expect more, this is why I want to teach. So that I can help make my expectations come true!

Up to Speed

I seem to be spending a lot of time catching you up to speed on what's been going on architecturally in my life. This will probably be the case throughout the month of May (quite a crazy month both architecturally and school-wise).

Here's the next month's schedule
Tomorrow I'm off to Berkeley, CA for a conference entitled The Death and Life of Social Factors. May 3rd is the talk for perspective Archeworks students, which will possibly include yours truly for next year, and their final presentation and review. In addition the weekend of my birthday is the Chicago Architecture Film Festival which will be accompanied by birthday festivities of some sort. Finally, at the end of the month in the same week are the EDRA Conference and Wright Plus, the later of which I will be a volunteer for. In the meantime the final draft of my thesis is due next Friday! What a month!

Also just to let you know I have been using my blog entry entitled Architecture = Art + Building + People for class assignments so it has gone through a number of revisions since I first posted it. I will be posting a final version of that.