our site.

                                                                    circular church

looking down church st.

Back Up Again Pt.2

I looked at this blog for the first time in almost a year today, and for the first time since I began my pursuit of education I have the ability to mark some sort of clearly defined change in mindset from point A to point B. 

I just got back from Charleston, SC on a site study and on the unexpectedly long drive(traffic and delays both ways) I had the opportunity to get lost in conversation and thought with my colleagues without the formal niceties of studio small talk. We jumped from studio talk to politics, to food preferences and trends, back to architecture, and the perspective from these kind of back-and-forth jumps establishes perspectives that one may normally give no conscious thought towards. Of these one stood out: Larry, the gentleman riding shotgun, had a talk with my professor just a few days prior (given his age, they likely spoke more candidly than would have with any of the other students) and the conversation reverted back to classwork. She (my professor) made the point that architecture is a field unlike any other in the sense that there aren't text books for studio, which is the landmark of architectural education. Because of this non-x=y field which encompasses such a wide range of smaller pieces, we essentially are teaching ourselves through the duration of our education, with only the advice of other students and teachers to buffer veering too far in one direction or another.

Since we are teaching ourselves and learning through autonomous retention and adaptation, this change in mindset from the beginning of this blog until now is a beautiful, very real thing, and I'm sure if looked at for long enough could lend some clues to a pattern or trend in the future. 

But, I digress.

I happened to capture a fair amount of pictures digitally in Charleston so I'll post those in the following post and do a follow-up in the next post.

Back Up Again

      This is the first post I've made in over a year, but I've decided to start writing again. Every time I've picked up my laptop to write down my thoughts I've ended up with pages of incoherent babbling, but after a year of new ideas and experiences I can finally start putting my ideas down in writing again. 
      As before, I will be writing about architecture, but after my first year studying architecture, my definition of the subject has expanded. Good design can be found everywhere, and my attempt from here forward is to describe architecture as I view it: not as an institution, but as a social, political, and living element. 

Subjective

It's approaching the end of my first week in this new city, and I have made it out unscathed. As I previously mentioned, one of the biggest (and unforeseen) problems I've encountered has been the boredom, and because of the lack of much to do I have found myself doing more observing than anything else. I have noticed the main places people walk to on the street adjacent to my apartment, and I've picked up on some of the routines that occur: what time certain places nearby get busy, and what kinds of people live around here. It's interesting to observe so many things occurring simultaneously, and to witness two separate people in the same space, doing the same thing, and having entirely different experiences.

My window looks out into a courtyard, in which all of the windows from the surrounding rooms face. Although the windows themselves hardly differ, the ornamentation and light that slips through them varies in color and intensity just enough to notice a distinct difference from window to window. These small changes show just how different the lives of the people who live behind these windows are, and how their individual experiences vary under the same conditions.

How does my experience differ?

Is it to do with my job (or lack thereof)? Is it the size of my apartment or the direction it faces? Do any of these things really affect my experience within this space at all and, more importantly, how will my experience here change?

While I obviously can't answer these questions, in time I know my experience here will change, and I'm excited to see how and when that will happen. If the experience is subjective, then my outlook will become my experience; simply put, if you want to have a good time, think you're going to have a good time. That may be oversimplified, but I'd like to believe it's true.

A Fresh Start

The last week and a half has been the most hectic I've had in a very long time. My girlfriend and I recently moved into our new apartment in Charlotte, just a few days after I had a terrible little episode of pneumonia. However, I made a full recovery and we were able to move in on our scheduled date, which went as smoothly as I imagined it would.
But what about all of this free time? I hadn't planned on having so much time to do nothing at all. I don't know anyone else who lives in this new city, and I don't know what there is to do. I'm sure this new place can't be THAT different than the place I grew up; the people here must like the same things and eat same food and live the same lives. If that's the case, then why is it so difficult to simply find something to do?
It seems like Charlotte tries harder in terms of presentation than Raleigh. This is only a first impression, and may be a completely wrong assumption. I'm excited to get used to living here and develop new routines and favorite places. With all of this new free time, I may just have to catch up on the reading that I've put off for the past few months.

100 Mile House

Last week the Architectural Foundation of British Columbia announced the winners of the 100 Mile House competition. The participants were to design a house within certain size constraints, made entirely from materials grown, manufactured, or recycled within 100 miles of Vancouver, where the contest is based. Student entries were also allowed and encouraged, and a separate category was made for just for them.
While none of the winning designs will likely be built, the contest has raised awareness about sustainable building methods and caused the contestants to develop an entirely different design process. Even further than change in process of design is the resulting product. Just as the 100 Mile Diet has caused people rethink their eating habits and understand where their food comes from, the 100 Mile House has caused the concept of a living space to be reevaluated and redesigned to fit a new range of needs.
One downside to building a "locatat" is the higher cost of local materials. The fact is that 100lbs of lumber is more expensive when it's reclaimed from existing structures than when they're clear cut from massive forests. However, raising general awareness about alternative building practices and materials is the first step to making an affordable zero impact house a reality.
So what's the next step? Involving students in this contest was a great way to tap into unused resources and get some ideas that stray away from the conventional, and should be encouraged in more design competitions. Even sticking to standard building methods, one of the house simply used steel, concrete, and glass, all produced near Vancouver. Just from buying locally, hundreds of miles are eliminated from the journey of materials.
Overall, the final designs were beautiful and innovative, and the amount of thought that went into the project was astounding. I appreciate contests like this, an look forward to seeing more, and hopefully seeing a gradual change in the way we view the cities and homes we live in.
Here is the link to the 100 Mile House page if you'd like to check it out: http://100mh.architecturefoundationbc.ca/

A House, But Not a Home

If you've ever driven through the mountains or coast of North Carolina, you may have been taken aback by the breathtaking scenery and the crisp air. But dotting the otherwise perfect landscape are thousands of "mobile villages" that give a glimpse into the crumbling economies of the former factory and farming towns. Why is it these prefabbed mobile homes act as beacons of poverty, announcing themselves at a single glance?

The money:
When you leave the major cities in NC, the average income goes down exponentially. Raleigh and Charlotte make between $25,000-27,000 per year (both cities place in the top 86% for highest average incomes), creating an immense gap between the smaller towns and the cities. My home town of Wendell, for instance, is just outside of Raleigh and has an annual per capita income of $17,772. Higher earning jobs are confined to the cities, just as it is in most of the US. However, this creates such a financial barrier that to stay in the rural areas is accepting a life that won't ever be lived with the basic comfort of financial stability. 25% of North Carolina towns make at or below the poverty line for a 2-person household (this doesn't even account for families with children), and most of these towns are in the mountains, the southern tip, or near the coast.


What does it mean?
I use trailers as a tracer for poverty, considering the majority of houses in these areas are prefabricated, and they serve as an easy indicator of collective financial struggle. They carry with them a stigma of lack intelligence, motivation, and overall care for those who inhabit them, and that's nothing new; This isn't accurate, but still remains a prevailing stereotype. Many people in rural areas choose to stay in those areas simply because they were raised there, and this only continues to perpetuate the failing rural economies.


Turning it around:
How would one go about changing the overall outlook of hundreds of thousands of struggling families? Aside from improving their financial status, relieving the associated stigma of their living spaces seems the most efficient means possible. Mobile home designs have remained nearly unchanged since their creation, and when the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" method fails, it's probably time to fix it.
The average mobile home ranges between $25,000-$50,000 new, and with the changes in manufacturing, materials, and building styles, the cost doesn't match the product. It would be possible to manufacture a more efficient and modern on the inside and outside. Creating a living space should be more than creating a shelter, it should be a home, and it should make a statement. Inhabitants of a home that represents a certain lifestyle and mindset will typically carry out that perceived lifestyle and mindset, and over the course of the next few months I will be modifying some designs I've been working on to help correct that, and, with time, help turn something previously viewed as an eyesore ino something beautiful.