There’s an excitement about newness. Moving into a new space, with fresh paint, unmarred counters, crisp door frames. The shininess of a countertop says “new,” not just as in “unblemished,” but “made just for you.” It says “this will not have to be repaired or replaced for a long time.” There is an excitement about […]

I like deconstructivist architecture. I like it the same way, I think, that I’d like a night out on the town with Lady Gaga. But at the end of the evening, I’d rather return to a home like an Audrey Hepburn in that simple black dress. Home is, more than anything else, our place of […]

“All discord [is] harmony not understood,” noted Alexander Pope. Discovering harmony in architecture, in what at first looks like discord, lends a wonderful richness and intrigue. Take this house on Vallejo Street. Study the ostensible jumble of unaligned windows and they’ll slowly reveal the internal layout of rooms and stair behind the façade. A similar work without the underlying […]

Bertrand Russell on conformity, from “Furniture and the Ego”: “Tolstoy describes somewhere a newly married couple who are giving their first evening party; when it is over, they congratulate each other on the fact that it has been exactly like anyone else’s evening party. Those to whom this is the highest ambition evidently fear contempt […]

T. S. Eliot grew up surrounded by books. Frank Lloyd Wright’s mother covered his walls with architectural prints. Charles Ives was raised in a house full of musical instruments. But what if Eliot had been raised among the architectural images? What if Ives had been raised with the books? Or for that matter, what if […]

  There’s a difficulty in designing one thing for multiple locations, such as a bus shelter or a public toilet. You can’t design for context since the surrounding of each installation is unique. Whatever the design, it can only display the unity of its own system. Too often, this frees a designer to promulgate his particular style at the expense of […]

Thanks to the local AIA for establishing low-budget, pro-bono, and detail award categories —  I picked up a citation award for my reflector/shade device at the Bogan residence. AIA Constructed Realities Winners