Material Choices in Architecture

This will eventually develop into a much more substantial essay, but I just wanted to make some early observations about material choice in the design of modern structures.

Architects in the 21st century have the largest palette of materials of any builders before them, and yet we often find ourselves fixated on an alarmingly bland spectrum of mediocrity. While some may attribute this to cost, in that the cheapest materials available on the market necessitate cookie-cutter suburbia and the corporate jungle, the real problem is market paralysis inflicted by status-quo manufacturers and basic consumer psychology. Perhaps the average household would like to have a house that looks and feels different than average, but doesn’t know where to find it. Just off the top of my head here are some materials architects have the choice to use:

• Wood
• Brick
• Stone
• Adobe
• Marble
• Sandstone
• Metal
• Concrete
• Steel
• Glass
• Plastic
• Bamboo
• Foam
• Carbon Fiber
• Canvas

And the list goes on and on. Yet almost 99% of buildings are created with 1% of possible material choices (Yep, I just went there).

To depart from politics and look more closely at design applications, I wanted to stress how incredibly important material choice is in any kind of building. Let’s say we’re stuck with just the three most common materials today: wood, concrete, and steel (in that order of strength and cost). These don’t just represent chemical and structural properties of matter. They represent emotions, thoughts and ideas, a collective memory. To illustrate:

1. Wood is the lightest and most alive of all materials. It is strange to think of trees being knocked down to salvage wooden planks, which are shipped horizontally by truck to a new site where they are once again staked vertically out of the ground. I would suggest that wood be used in its Vitruvian idealism, first and foremost as post-lintel or roof rafters, to connect most to its original existence as trees and branches. I am not a fan of wood as walls, because it was never meant to separate two spaces as a barrier. Wood is most triumphant when it supports and invites, when it can be circumambulated or climbed. Wood buildings are proud, yet humble.
2. Concrete is, I would argue, the most natural of all materials. Even though it is made through artificial mixing and pouring technologies, it evokes the most ancient of human living, even before Vitruvian architecture. It brings to mind caves in mountains, or the hollow of earth in which no greater feeling of security and comfort can be attained. My most intimate experiences with the built environment have been laying on concrete and feeling its thermal mass, synonymous to laying out on solid rock after a tiring hike in the mountains. This is the architect as sculptor of rock, mover of mountains and valleys, Mother Nature herself.
3. Steel is taking over rapidly for very good reasons, often hidden within concrete and secretly providing structural support for engineering feats, but I am disappointed in the lack of really innovative applications of steel. Steel buildings are not forests or caves; they’re machines. They should look and feel like the product of human imagination, not Mother Nature but Machine Man. I want to see more buildings tout their complexity and flexibility. I want to see more buildings come alive and interact with their users. I want to see buildings that look like they built themselves.

If the application in design is not relevant to you, then at least you can take upon the role of an architectural critic, examine the buildings and spaces around you, the emotions you attach to them, and retroactively imagine whether those feelings and memories could have been better contained (or kept out) by a different choice in material.

Security in the Cyberphysical Age

I was forwarded some great advice from an attorney recently that I thought I would share on my blog. These are certain security concerns we often take for granted in a world where we too often have our heads much too high above the clouds, worrying about events that will most likely not affect us: the war, famine, protests, social divide, the economy. If you think about, the real worst thing that can happen to you this day and age is losing your wallet.

Read this and make a copy for your files in case you need to refer to
it someday. A corporate attorney sent the following out to the
employees in his company:

1. Do not sign the back of your credit cards. Instead, put ‘PHOTO ID
REQUIRED.’

2. When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card accounts, DO
NOT put the complete account number on the ‘For’ line. Instead, just
put the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of
the number, and anyone who might be handling your check as it passes
through all the check processing channels won’t have access to it.

3. Put your work phone # on your checks instead of your home phone. If
you have a PO Box, use that instead of your home address. If you do
not have a PO Box, use your work address. Never have your SS# printed
on your checks. You can add it if it is necessary. But if you have it
printed, anyone can get it.

4. Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine. Do both
sides of each license, credit card, etc. You will know what you had in
your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call
and cancel. Keep the photocopy in a safe place.

I also carry a photocopy of my passport when I travel either here or
abroad. We’ve all heard horror stories about fraud that’s committed on
us in stealing a name, address, Social Security number, and credit
cards..

Unfortunately, I, an attorney, have first hand knowledge because my
wallet was stolen last month. Within a week, the thieves ordered an
expensive monthly cell phone package, applied for a VISA credit card,
had a credit line approved to buy a Gateway computer, received a PIN
number from DMV to change my driving record information online, and
more.

But here’s some critical information to limit the damage in case this
happens to you or someone you know:

1. We have been told we should cancel our credit cards immediately.
But the key is having the toll free numbers and your card numbers
handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find them.

2. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where your
credit cards, etc., were stolen. This proves to credit providers you
were diligent, and this is a first step toward an investigation (if
there ever is one).

But here’s what is perhaps most important of all:

Call the 3 national credit reporting organizations immediately to
place a fraud alert on your name and also call the Social Security
fraud line number. I had never heard of doing that until advised by a
bank that called to tell me an application for credit was made over
the Internet in my name.

The alert means any company that checks your credit knows your
information was stolen, and the company must contact you by phone to
authorize new credit..

By the time I was advised to do this, almost two weeks after the
theft, all the damage had been done. There are records of all the
credit checks initiated by the thieves’ purchases, none of which I
knew about before placing the alert. Since then, no additional damage
has been done, and the thieves threw my wallet away this weekend
(someone turned it in). It seems to have stopped them dead in their
tracks..

Now, here are the numbers you always need to contact about your
wallet, if it has been stolen:

1.) Equifax: 1-800-525-6285

2.) Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742

3.) Trans Union : 1-800-680 7289

4.) Social Security Administration (fraud line): 1-800-269-0271

What He Meant to Me: Passion

The first thing that came to mind, oddly enough, was Usher’s tribute to Michael Jackson at his memorial in 2009. Earlier this week, I watched an equally moving tribute from none other than Stephen Colbert. The effect of his passing could be felt quite superficially through all the traditional channels of celebrity death: an almost instant Twitter trend catapulted by this tweet from the New York Times, Facebook links to his 2005 Commencement address from the Stanford community with the quotes “Stay hungry, stay foolish,” and thousands of flowers left in front of Apple stores and offices all around the world. And, as they all go, his memory was largely forgotten by the weekend.

But what me meant to me was something much deeper. He was one of the few people who embodied the ideal creative spirit in business and industry, never bowing down to public opinion, never releasing a product until it was perfect in his mind, and never letting perfection stop him from doing it again and again. He understood that, quite honestly, he was smarter than his consumer, and so in turn he could dictate trends in society with the power of persuasion. He would have made a fabulous architect.

If in twenty years I could be somewhere in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry with not necessarily the same level of success that Jobs has had, but with his passion and persistence, I would think that I had succeeded in a big way.

One of the most profound stories he shared at his Stanford address was not about his education, or his job. It was about death, and it has stayed with me for six years.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

 

Yes, Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. But sometimes even the best inventions don’t work the way they’re supposed to.

Thank you for giving birth to a creative spark that will never die.