The Character of the Architect

Should architecture theory be studied in architecture school? We seem driven to find the right theory to make the right kinds of buildings rather than focusing on how to create better people and then igniting their sensitivity to better understand the needs of the people around them.

Simply put, maybe we should be more focused on what the proper character of an architect should be and then give them a general direction to head in rather than focusing solely on theory.

Rather than pushing comprehensive theories based on communication theory or patterns, we should help students and ourselves grow in two directions: character and knowledge.

I think we need to start driving towards curriculum that says having character that is compassionate, emotionally intelligent, and intellectually able is where we start our teaching.

And then for theory we give guidelines that reflect this character: we feel in our hearts that buildings should meet people's needs as well as visually communicate ideas so we find ways to design for these needs.

We should evolve our character to where we value the idea that buildings should serve people and create spaces that serve all the different ways they may want to live their lives.
We should have enough soul to know buildings should support all the stages in life that make it meaningful.

I find the more prescriptive approach to theory that we are now caught up in to be insufficient and in it's over wrought definitions and thinking, I find we are saying that we doesn't trust the architect to have enough character to be able to figure out things on their own.

Whether Christopher Alexander's over noodled tomes or through the ground fog of critical theory that rises up from most universities, they all fall equally short. They lack a discussion on first making ourselves better people and then the idea that better people who know how to use their minds and their hearts can then find a way to make better buildings.

" I thought, maybe I should go with the whole idea of it being boring. What’s the most boring thing I could do just to annoy everybody?

"And the most boring thing that I could think of to do, which would really go against the grain for the MTV generation … was a talking head: a middle-class white male in a suit, talking to them in a really boring way about music videos.

And I thought, 'Oh yeah, I’m on to something here. This is really dull and uninteresting.' "

-Rocky Morton, Co-Creator and Director of Max Headroom

Taking an Array Approach to the Design of Mobile Tools

You could say there are two types of design projects in digital design - Tools and Marcom. 

Supporting the multiplicity of goals that a user may want to accomplish with an interactive tool is such a different problem to address than creating a page that whose end goal is to create product or brand awareness - whose point is to support and argument and take a user to a single conclusion (buy this product). I saw this recently as I sat and listened to East Coast UX designers trained under the ad agency model critique the interfaces for mobile tools. 

Something was wrong about their comments. Here's what I figured out.

Gestural interfaces for digital tools require the design of an array. When traditional print designer or agency trained UX designers try to arrange CTAs and text either from the top down or from left to right these tools break.

What has to be understood is that the person using these tools may have both hands on them and, depending on the target of the tool (e.g. a camera's region of interest or a music player), CTAs are best arranged around this target based on eyelines and physical placement of the hands rather than the principals that govern print design or digital marcom layout.

Design for mobile tools is probably more like laying out a cockpit for the SR 71 (below) than laying out a page in a magazine. The elements aren't laid out in lines. They are gathered and then as groups associated with other groups in ways that serve the highest number of scenarios. And they all defer to the physical requirements of the pilot and that pilot's main focus, what is dead ahead.

Brad Katsuyama

Brad Katsuyama sounds like an amazing guy - clear headed - and he identified an immense problem with electronic trading through careful analysis and team building.  I also admire that he didn't question his initial sense that something was wrong.

Here are two good articles:
Is the US Stock Market Rigged
Flash Boys Fame Sells Upstart Exchange IEX to Big Investors

Morris Arboretum Tree House

One of the nicest places to be in Philadelphia is the Morris Arboretum Tree House. Someday I'm going to take a thermos of coffee and a book up there and stay for a few hours surrounded by the trees.

Pocoyo City Scape

I watch Pocoyo for many reasons; the stories are good ones for my kids, I like the sound design, the visual design is stunning.

Most recently, in the "Poczilla" episode, I saw the nicest design of a city I have ever seen. 

Pocoyo's Art Director is designer Pedro Bascon, I was floored by the colors and the graphic layout of the skyscraper facades. Bascon's illustration and design work is amazing. He's a super talented designer and his work is not only on his blog about his design for animation, his larger porfolio is on Behance and there is a personal site that is more geared towards illustrating children's books.

 It's a simple thing and maybe something most don't really care about, but I have had to design cityscapes and have sketched out a few on my own and Bascon's is incredibly original.

 I love it.

The Beauty of a Sycamore

What a line this Sycamore branch makes against the late Winter sky.

Article: INTERVIEW: Paul Levy’s Public Spaces

Paul Levy is a hero to Philadelphia for working so hard with the downtown since 1990.

INTERVIEW: Paul Levy's Public Spaces
http://americancity.org/daily/entry/interview-paul-levys-public-spaces

(Sent from Flipboard)

Philadelphia's Soul

Ah, beautiful Philadelphia. City of River and Sky.

A gritty post-industrial landscape dominates my general image of Philadelphia, but there is a lot to this city that comes from its context in nature. This view across the Delaware River reminds me of that. A nature that is often forgotten but as strong here as anywhere else - even in my old home - San Francisco.

Trees and gardens are celebrated in the city way more than I've ever seen in any city on the West Coast, but the idea that this city is riding on the back of some huge natural event and energy that needs to be honored is missing.

I would love to see that aspect of this city, the natural aspect become more recognized and loved. It's hard to get to due to the freeways that block us from the rivers and the acres of asphalt and houses that lay over the rock and soil, but I think Philadelphia's future relies on it.

I am not alone and Penn Praxis leads the way with actually facilitating an actionable plan to reconnect the city to the waterfront. I hope others can join in and somehow we reach a critical mass that can establish Philadelphia as a city by a river.

This was taken from the Camden Aquarium.

Radio Towers Are AWESOME! #1

RKO interstitial. Love this.

Philadelphia City Hall courtyard

OK. Sorry. But the Philadelphia City Hall is much nicer to look at from the courtyard in its center than from a distance. I took this shot as I walked out of one of the portals and into the central courtyard the other day.

Carmac Street in Spring

Carmac Street in Philadelphia is one of the prettiest and charming streets in Philadelphia. Spring 2012 is definitely out and about here.

Cira Center conference room ceiling

PITCHES in ceiling make all the difference. The entire workspace and meeting floor at the Cira Center in Philadelphia are very well designed making my experience of the hours I have spent in there listening to speakers really nice. There is a glamour to being there.
Cesar Pelli (and a host of staff, I'm sure) was the architect/designer.

Philadelphia and the Schuykill River water front.

It's going to be hard for Philadelphia to turn the Schuylkill river into a place to enjoy. The trains and I-76 make hard fences to jump. At one time the river for us was just another freeway of sorts; more like the freeway and rail lines we curse than like the park we'd like it to be now.

San Francisco has an amazing connection to the Bay but that is only because of two disasters. One is the collapse of trade economy which destroyed the port and the other was the earthquake that destroyed the Embarcadero Freeway. Now SF has a clean shot at the Bay. There's not much here for Philly to learn from unless it's to wait and turn industrial collapse and natural disaster to good use.
What to do....?

What skyscrapers look like from skyscrapers

 

Modernism in the minds of developers and architects of office towers = uniformity and tediousness. This isn't whining. It's a fact. There's no joy in looking out their window for anyone with an office on THIS side of 1500 Market Street in Philadelphia.

It is the people with the offices on the other side of this floor, those who face the funky glorious mess of City Hall's facade, who feel like the have something to look at. Here is THAT view from just down the hall:

Three Little Buildings

131 S. 18th, Philadelphia is in the details.

Lovely.

Serpents at Wayne Junction SEPTA Station

Oh so nice.

SEPTA'S poor beat up Wayne Junction Station must have been something else at one time.... These serpents most likely are the dolphins that belong to Benjamin Franklin's coat of arms. They show up all over the city. Penn's shield, or coat of arms, is a composite of Franklin's dolphins and Penn's three plates.

[UPDATE] They are fixing up this station.

Philly Iron

Nice old Philadelphia house on Allen Ln in Mt. Airy