A Different Perspective

A panoramic view from my office window

This place is nuts! It is impossible to get bored in New York - everywhere I've been there has always been something going on that is new and unexpected.

Yesterday I was riding the subway and it was very full. Every now and then a homeless person comes onboard and begs subway riders for money for one reason or another - some because they have a family to look after, others because they need to get food for the night - but yesterday instead of a lone beggar coming onto the subway, two older men stepped aboard and, although they were both homeless, they began singing to entertain the passengers. Where else in the world could this possibly happen?!

It was so neat. I think the urban built environment caters perfectly to these kinds of encounters, and I look forward to many more such adventures while I'm here.

This brings me to think that although I originally intended for this blog to be about a design student's perspective of architecture removed from specific personal places or experiences, perhaps more can be learned and disseminated by sharing the specific events of one person in one particular place. The events and situations that I will experience while I'm in New York are some of the most exposed that anyone could have to the world of architecture and design, and so I shouldn't limit my posts to generic musings, but should instead describe my personal adventures in the city and then link them back to the larger themes.

Just as I started this post off with a panorama of the view from my office window, let me close it with another wide-angle perspective. Even though the world is big and daunting, sometimes zooming in and focusing on our own particular encounters and strengths is the best way to make the most of our situations and opportunities. Let me finish with this quote,

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Wild at Heart by John Eldredge."

Manifesto

"Any architectural project we do takes at least four or five years, so increasingly there is a discrepancy between the acceleration of culture and the continuing slowness of architecture. "
-Rem Koolhaas

Communication and collaboration in the field of architecture is becoming increasingly globalized, digitized, and standardized. Architects must be prepared to work at an international scope through increasingly complex media and in increasingly more dynamic and integrated design processes. If we are to be proponents of architectural design, we must look to past architectural precedents for guidance, intrepid new technologies for potential, and time-tested biological processes for inspiration.

Collectively and individually, national and international culture is evolving faster than ever before. If architecture and design is to keep pace, new methods of idea proliferation and dissemination must be embraced. This blog will endeavor to present new ideas, conceptions, projects, and theories from the perspective of an architectural design student immersed in an ever-changing world.

I welcome all comments and I hope that the designs and concepts presented in this blog will spark new commentary and developments regarding contemporary design ideas and potentials, and in doing so I hope that global culture will respond in due course, influencing the way we shape and perceive the world around us. It is reasonable to attempt to compensate for the slowness of all design processes, especially in the field of architecture, and ideally to merge the development of culture and design on one collinear, focused path to the development and betterment of society as a whole.