I figured out how to easily change the tag-line on the website. One more thing to experiment with.

The Sound of Doom

Stippling. If you’ve heard me talk about being an architect in the 21st century, then I’ve probably referenced this. I’ve worked with architects who still stipple by hand. One time I heard this noise while doing some intricate automatic scheduling in ArchiCAD per a client’s request. I paused for a moment from my work and counted the number of dots this fellow architect did in 10 seconds. Then I did some quick math to figure out how much each dot was costing his client. I won’t tell you the number I calculated. But it was horrifying. This is an extreme example of an architect forging ahead with a practice that should have long been abandoned. Whether some archaic drafting technique, a design mentality, or a hang-up about how a firm should be run, we all have these obstacles dragging us down. Unchecked these bad habits will destroy us. To me this is The Sound of Doom.

Reflections

My ramblings all point towards The Endless Path of Improvement. Hopefully they are finding some utility in other people’s lives. The Sound of Doom should be one of the prods pushing us ever forward. If you ever say “this is good enough, we don’t need a better solution”, just go ahead and give up. Because good solutions aren’t static. They get worse over time.

What’s Next

From the moment I could hold a crayon until almost the end of my freshman year of college I spent almost all of my time dreaming. My notebooks were filled with doodles and cartoons. I learned 3D Studio Max and AutoCAD before I could drive so that I could draft and model spaceships and robots. I spent countless hours building Lego cities, playing sandbox video games and immersing myself in role-playing games. A childhood of make-believe. But then I got more into Architecture and became Serious (as serious as I could be). One of the biggest tragedies of my architectural education is that it killed my ability to dream. Maybe this wasn’t just my education, but the process of growing from a kid entering college into an adult facing the real world. A student turning into the college grad who could get married at 22 and hold a real job. In some ways much of my twenties was a creative wasteland. Sure I did nice school projects, painted some art cars, etc. But the creative spark that I chased and kindled for years and years was forgotten. I spent too much time running from my natural inclination to be irreverent in a playful and intellectual way.

Then I became a father. And everything began to refocus.

So what’s next? I don’t know for sure (which is the way it should be). But I’m going to dream, play, and experiment. I abandoned games and cartoons and much of my non-serious life because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do as a fancy architecture student at a top-notch program. But I’m not good at acting serious. I struggle to dress like an adult. I fail at not interjecting humor into my passions. Trying to put serious thought and humor in separate compartments is foolish and counterproductive to my creative process. Picasso, Pantera, and Plex from Yo Gabba Gabba are all acceptable foils for deep thought. And that’s as it should be.

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