This initial sketch involves some news thoughts on my interests, and begins getting at a cyclical nature of use, for the waste, the structure, the fabrics, the systems - maybe some way to ensure reuse, to ensure no waste of materials and particularly, no waste of space.

The second image is a bit representational, with the comparison of the body and its systems to the following : 3 distinct manners of creating a new housing unit - the literal structure and internal system, and those of enclosure and facade - groupings of system of the structure, internal areas, and enclosures - and everything minutely detailed and separate, brought together in new forms.

The comparison can be seen, and was thought of, in scales ranging from the aforementioned building scale, to those of a community - the head and politics, the hands and community action, or labor, or what you so choose. In the end, the exercise was to see, at certain degrees of the degradation of a community physically, socially, and mentally, which could be either/both the result or the cause of flight, how a system could be invented to allow for maximum re-birthing of the community in plight.

Thesis

A couple of days ago now, I heard a statement, the truth of which bothered me. In the coming years, when climate change issues may truly rear their heads and go "rawr!", it is accurate to think that the economic situations in countries relying on fossil fuels (and causing the damage) will get into seriously dire situations, but come on - most of them will be organized enough to do something, help sustain, protect, and transfer their people through, at least most of the way.

But it is always and most certainly, the least culpable for the drastic times who will suffer its wrath the greatest.

People always want to change where things are going - and God give them strength, blessing, and direction to do so - but there are too many people who are completely lost already. They have nothing, they rely on charity from others, and they even then rarely see it, as it isn't always given, and it doesn't always reach the right destination.

So here is a problem - I have never been to anyplace affected in such a way, hell I haven't left the country since we made Canada trips require passports. But I believe truly there is something that must be done, and it is an area I am looking at with great interest - finding a way to save others from us. I currently want to examine a refugee/displaced person encampment that allows those inhabiting to sustain themselves in a entirely cyclical nature, such as all roles use all/ account for all outputs of all other roles.

My feeling is, when the chips are down, people revert to using what they have to survive - barter and trading, saving and hoarding - a kit of parts, an addition to currently existing camp forms that enables a cycle to begin, or an entire new unit of design that does it all - that is what I am passionate about.

How The Author Draws Up a Project

After reading the article "How to Draw Up a Project", I find myself mainly believing that the author does all the things he states, and he states them clearly, which perhaps leads to my main reaction. That reaction being not a terribly critical one, but that simply that there was not as much passion as I would typically expect in such a writing, one exploring how an architect chooses to define themselves through their process, as so many students and practitioners do (or claim to do). It could be because his words are clear and to the point, he refuses to use hyperbole, made up words, and new definitions for basic English words that are merely confusing, and his work is under 12 pages long, which lamentably and ultimately pulls his work, in my mind, away from the more "intellectual, philosophical" crowd which we are so used to reading. Whatever it is, it took a second read through for me to truly appreciate it. And two read-throughs took less that one of anything else I've read in school - so, you know, that's cool.

Regardless, the part which I found most engaging was his stance on, ironically, how one chooses their stance, the first step - the meeting with the phantom. While the advice, or direction, or what you would call it, is never very original, the metaphor used is itself original enough and clearly enough defined. A mass - imprecise, ill-defined, open, without the boundaries of a skeleton to connect to, or a skin wrapped over it, but perhaps you could grasp its intent - a scale, a movement, an intent. The conclusion, that the process of representing this to others should retain these qualities, is equally clearly stated - at this stage, the forms taken in representation must be a result of this process and this process alone - they shall not be the end. All of the other factors - the social, economic, ecological, philosophical connections and interweaving - shall work with this first analysis for further work. Bam. Done.

Call me simple, say I took the wrong thing away from it, but I liked the clarity, and happened to agree with or take no objection to all of the author's other points - with the exception of the tree as structure metaphor - which I get in terms of branching out, but in the probably 10-15 readings I've encountered using it, none have convincingly mapped out the grow, pieces, or the skeleton in a design, and those of a tree in a comparison. Perhaps that would be too literal, and I do understand it in theory, it has only always bothered me that we get "these networks almost invariably branch off from tree structures (limited growths on a common trunk) even as our buildings become less 'tree-like' and more 'plankton-like', massive configurations of uniform growth."

Plankton-like? Perhaps, but my fundamental knowledge of sea-bacteria colonies is not advanced enough to truly appreciate this. Perhaps I want to see these issues too literally, but plankton is a literal, physical reality, and so is a tree. And so is the structure (not construction) of a building.