Article 1, Introductions from a future traveler.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Watching video is optional!

Here it is, my first Architect Denied article, trying to improve architecture and people's understanding of it. My hope is to become a force for good with a capital “A” scarred on my back, not for adulterer but architect trying to create an electronic movement that will change the built environment and hopefully help you pick a better home to live in. Yes, I know what you are thinking, “how dare he tell me what home to live in”! The reason I feel I can tell you that is because I’m from the future (seriously) and in the future people keep asking me the same question; why did people in your time, the 20^th century and part of the 21^st live in crappy plastic boxes? To be fair to us and everyone that lives in plastic, I usually tell them “well, oil, I think”. My present day reality however is living in New York, specifically in a suburb of Manhattan. I’m well acquainted with sprawl in all its glorious forms, high density living, the fast pace of the city, grid-lock traffic, the stampeding of human life on black Friday, the endless strip malls, and parking lots. 

Although this is my first blog I’m writing most likely it’s not the first you are reading. I thought maybe this first article then should be written similar in style to how they made that movie “Memento”, (google it) where the movie starts off with the end and unfolds to the beginning all the while pissing you off until you figure out “oh, ok I get it now, that’s pretty cool", or stupid or whatever.  I know in this world of unlimited information, over stimulation, instant gratification and everyone trying to get your attention or you theirs- I say not until article 100 or so will you be reading this- which is impossible unless you subscribe to the science of quantum physics – you can’t be reading article 100 if it hasn’t been written yet, well maybe you can.

So what to expect or not, since you already know what I have written in future articles not yet written.  Most likely you figured out that we (we who? It’s just me at the present time) are trying to unlock the reasons for the horrors of sprawl, the crappy houses we choose to live in, the wonderful ghettos we chose to ignore and the hunt for the rare yellow tailed, spotted building we call great architecture. It all starts with my first fundamental law of architecture- we all need to live in something; we all need shelter -fact. This first law will be my topic of discussion in my next blog. I’m hoping since this first law applies to every single human on this planet, all 7 billion of us, that people will be curious to learn about their most precious investment; time , I mean your house or maybe our planet.

So why call this blog ArchitectDenied? I chose this title because it best suited the answer I kept getting while pondering the questions of architecture, the homes we live in, our neighborhoods, and all the other highly interesting observations I made above. I looked back on our history and asked why did suburban sprawl happen, why did we live in plastic homes, why were there ghettos, why did we accept strip malls, plow over every single living tree and munch on junk food? My response to most of these questions was, given the chance and conditions I think a properly trained architect (which I believe I am) would design something decent aesthetically pleasing and functional-after all that’s what we are trained to do! I can’t imagine any architect who goes out of his or HER way to design ugly structures, poorly planned neighborhoods (sprawl) or skyscrapers or anything else. All architects I believe, whatever their design capabilities or talents want to design the very best whatever, BUT something gets in the way- bureaucrats, Architect denied, building officials and their sprawl zoning mentality, architect denied, builders and their bottom line, architect denied, oil, architect denied, stupidity, architect denied, because I said so, architect denied, work in this cubicle, architect denied and so on and so forth. Join me in my next article where I explore why we choose to live in crappy plastic homes, which can be explained by my first so called law of architecture, signing out from the future.