18 July, 2011

I read this in a comment on a facebook page called Art & Architecture today...while listening to Lira and Alex Lora...

... A good education is not about telling you how to be an architect. You can learn this in the industry. A university education should make you think, analyze and question what it MEANS to be an architect...

What does it mean to be an architect? Some say it means getting rich at old age, never being able to afford your tastes. Others say it s living in a state of perpetual frustration because you will always see all the potential there is for doing things in a better way but all the people with the power to effect those changes will never play ball. Others think that it means being among the smartest people in the country. That life is now about living it in a way that ensures this precious potential is not wasted on doing things not related to architecture. On the other hand, others see it as a path to many riches and wealth in the design, consulting and/or construction sectors of real estate. They say that architecture is about people yet architects are among the most anti-social students in University. They are always scribbling, sketching or clicking away trying to resolve form, function, services and environmental impacts of virtual designs. Afterward they move about university grounds carrying huge chunks of paper and heavy computer hardware looking like they actually believe they are the smartest people in the higher learning institution, even though being an architect almost inevitably means that they will end up working for someone much wealthier than them and who is probably not an architect- the smartest people on campus . But what does it really mean to be an architect? I can only give my opinion as a Tanzanian raised architecture student at the University of Nairobi. And my opinions are inevitably influenced by the context within which I have lived. Recently I have come across Ken Wilber s book A Brief History of Everything , Eckhart Tolle s A New Earth and Stephen Hawkins s A Brief History of Time all of who are not architects. Ken Wilber is a Philosopher, Eckhart Tolle is a Spiritual Teacher and everybody knows the Quantum Physicist Stephen Hawkins. These three books made me feel just how shallow I have been about this architecture business. I mean, sure I have met smart people in the architecture field, but none of them can match Hawkins genius or Wilber s depth of thought. And in all the wisdom I have met in the architecture field so far none of it has had such profound life changing implications as Eckhart Tolle s very small and simplified book.

At some point it started feeling like am a runway model who is not eating any other foods apart from the ones being offered by my manager. And he has me convinced that because he is giving me the best food my skinny malnutrition body is the most beautiful thing to behold... now this may be the case in many parts of the world but in Africa skinny is definitely not sexy. It may be tough to admit but architecture does not make you the most anything. Last I heard only one architect in the world is worth more than a billion dollars, and that he made his wealth from real estate, not design. Also it does not seem to make you the happiest person on earth since most of the time you are too busy to take your time and appreciate life as it happens all around you. Sure there is satisfaction in seeing your work last for ages in the form of a building, but it is widely thought that teachers get the most satisfaction from seeing the fruits of their labour in the achievements of the many students that go through their hands over the years. Architecture does not even make you the most arrogant professional out there. I am yet to meet architects that are more arrogant than doctors. So what does it mean to be an architect? Eckhart Tolle has convinced me that we do not have a life that we live but rather that Life lives through us. We are just but manifestations of Life/ Spirit/ Essence/ Consciousness. And Ken Wilber has so far convinced me that the purpose of Life is to evolve and become more and more aware of itself through itself. Since we are manifestations of Life, then this probably means that our purpose in life is to become more and more aware of Life itself. To become conscious of the Consciousness that we are just but a manifestation of. Since Life is living itself through us, it follows that we are always at the place where Life wants us to be, doing the things that Life wants us to do. This does not imply absence of choice, fate, destiny or some form of premeditation from Life since we are Life and Life is us. At every present moment we are Life manifesting itself with the purpose of evolving so that we can become more aware of our Essence which is Life itself. Life has brought me up to this point where I am a student of architecture at the University of Nairobi so that I can evolve and therefore become more aware of my Self, which is my Essence, which is Life. I think that to be an architect means to be an instrument of Life that is to be used by Life to make Life more aware of Life. To be an architect means to celebrate Life in every aspect of an architect s life using the wisdom, knowledge, skill and experience that Life has bestowed upon me. To celebrate Life in the context within which I live, within the social structures and through the cultures of the community within which I live, to be seen as one celebrating life and therefore inspire it in others and finally to feel, contemplate, internalize and meditate on the celebration of Life and therefore keep moving ever closer towards becoming consciously aware of Life. All that while being true to myself and moving with the flow of Life as it/we/I happen all around me.

19 July 2011

Architecture offers quite extraordinary opportunities to serve the community, to enhance the landscape, refresh the environment and to advance mankind the successful architect needs training to overcome these pitfalls however and start earning some serious money.

Stephen Fry, Paperweight

19 July, 2011 The six phases of a design project: 1. Enthusiasm 2. Disillusionment 3. Panic 4. Search for the guilty 5. Punishment of the innocent 6. Praise for the non-participants Notice on the wall of the Greater London Council Architects Department (According to Astragal AJ, 22 March 1978)

20 July 2011

As an artist I did not set out to make the public understand but to find problems for myself of space and form, and to explore them. Henry Moore (on his 80th birthday)

The need to absorb the special constraints peculiar to a particular problem into a continuing and developing design philosophy, therefore, becomes one of the chief challenges in the practice of design.

The only person who is an artist is the one that can make a puzzle out of the solution. Karl Kraus, Nachts Men have become like gods. Isn t it about time that we understood our divinity? Science offers us total mastery over our environment and over our destiny, yet instead of rejoicing we feel deeply afraid. (Leach 1968)

Rare is the programmer or architect in a time of rapid social and technological change who can truly assume that he can deal with the present alone. A developer or financier who risks the sure possibility of functional obsolescence is surely short-sighted. (Suckle 1980)

To design is no longer to increase the stability of the man-made world: it is to alter, for good or ill, things that determine the course of its development. Chris Jones (1970)

While scientists may help us to understand the present and predict the future, designers may be seen to prescribe and to create the future, and thus their process deserves not just ethical but also moral scrutiny.

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts. Charles Darwin, the Descent of Man

Spatial structure is not a goal in itself, but is only relevant if it concretises the spatial implications of a character. (Norburg-Schultz 1975)

Architecture immortalises and glorifies something. Hence there can be no architecture where there is nothing to glorify . . . Architecture is a gesture. Not every purposive movement of the human body is a gesture. And no more is every building designed for a purpose architecture. (Wilson Wittgenstein 1986)

The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines. Frank Lloyd Wright, New York Times

The life of the design critic is in truth far easier than that of the designer! Since designers create things for other people to use they find themselves surrounded by critics all of whom seem to know how to design but just choose not to earn their living that way! No field of design is more prone to exposing its creator s weaknesses than architecture. Bryan Lawson, How Designers Think

For better or for worse, the individual is always and forever a member of groups. It would appear that no matter how autonomous and how strong his personality, the commonly shared norms, beliefs, and practices of his group bend and shape and mould the individual. Krech, Crutchfield and Ballachey, the Individual in Society

Everyone is doomed to be the one he wants to be seen by the others: that is the price the individual pays to society in order to remain an insider, by which he is simultaneously possessor of and possessed by a collective pattern of behaviour. Even if people built their houses themselves, they could not escape from this, but instead of having to accept the fact that there is only one place to put the dining table, everyone would at least be enabled to interpret the collective pattern in his own personal way. Herman Hertzberger, Looking for the Beach under the Pavement

There are then in sum, five characteristics which distinguish the group from a collection of individuals. The members of the group are in interaction with one another. They share a common goal and set of norms, which give direction and limits to their activity. They also develop a set of roles and a network of interpersonal attraction, which serve to differentiate themselves from other groups. Hare (...on group dynamics and involvement in the design process)

Language can become a screen that stands between the thinker and reality. That is the reason why true creativity starts where language ends. Arthur Koestler

As the designer Kenneth Grange put it you do have to ferret around . . . to find that which is then suddenly obvious to you . (Cross 2001a)

The first move is to talk through the brief, understand what has led to it, understand fundamentally what it is about and that conversation is primarily about building up a level of confidence, of trust. That is the very first move and it s nothing about buildings, it s not about solutions or ideas about buildings. Ian Ritchie

In essence designers tend to have relatively little theory that enables them to get from problem to solution. Rather they tend to acquire considerable stores of knowledge about solutions and their possibilities or affordances. Bryan Lawson, How Designers Think