I was talking to my colleague about how bored we all are! We all go through this period of boredom, I don't know why but its just there either in the back of our minds or at the forefront of our brains, am I bored you may ask?, well the thought did occur to me with the highly intellectual conversations we are all having these days. do we feel excited about what we are really designing? yes if it's unique definitely, I don't even want to sleep if its exciting. Why should I?
We can have exciting Architecture, it can be quite exciting at the best of times, but then we get bored right down to Earth and that boredom can last all day or it can last for 5-10 minutes, yes I know, we have all been there, staring at the Sun. Its funny I am thinking of a U2 song right now, why is it that I am writing? what am I writing for? maybe I have just had a bad day and need a high octane coffee break, it's a shame that I don't smoke, but snipping a cigar with a cigar cutter would be exciting, (I am sure its not a Mission Impossible 2 scenario, where Stamp messes up) even maybe reading the Sunday Times Newspaper or the Independent might be exciting, as its been years since I even saw a newspaper, but hey that excitement might just come back...
I might just walk with that newspaper or the Architect's journal rolled up in my left jacket pocket, and wonder why they wrote an article about me again?
I may even get the bright orange trousers that Malcolm Fraser wears, look like a bin man, follow him into the restaurant, tap him on the shoulder and sit down with him whilst he waits for whoever he's waiting for, because I have a few questions...
(and yes folks I did get his business card) and I might be just as passionate as he was in Edinburgh, when he built the Scottish Poetry Library, read all about it here peeps
Poetry is beautiful, it sets you free, its like nature and it can never really be boring.
As Architects are you bored of doing the same extension a zillion times? I can't be bothered to do them! Are Planners bored of the same old house extension, are they bored of policy or do they chew chewing gum, like Alex Furguson? talking about Alex Furguson, is he not bored of winning 13 Premiership titles?, was he not bored of lifting more than 30 trophies at Old Trafford?
Are we being environmentally friendly doing the same boring designs?, is boredom the new form of desire? the new form of choice? i.e. is it actually desirable for desirability's sake? does the cost of doing a boring extension, outweigh the improvement on the house? Do I really want to sit there 5 hours drawing and then 4 hours doing building regs, answering emails, switching on my computer, driving to site, increasing the footprint of CO2 emissions from an old car? that we think is new in the eyes of the designer, but it's so old, or the cost to manufacture the car outweighs sitting in it?
I might as well read a book in the garden, at least it does not talk back.
Yes sure thing! A £10K extension is a waste of everyone's time!
I might as well go to the Casino in Las Vegas, and yes folks build it in the desert and they will come and we talk about going green? really? are we not going red with all the politics of antiquity? You can get a mortgage but you can't sign a JCT contract online and we talk about how we are going green?
Architecture is becoming easier for the sake of architectural students and the trade is becoming diluted as there are massive void spaces in their construction drawings, (really I have to have a go, and I would love to be at your next crit tearing you all to shreds just like the shredding machine), they don't know how to build anything! the lack of education for the sake of education, in search of education, to try to get educated, or they are still searching for the education? who knows what those species are drawing these days? The computers are saving them!
Maybe the monkeys had a better chance of learning how to use the club to feed themselves. when the black monolith suddenly appeared out of nowhere in Arthur C. Clarkes 2001 space odyssey? I will let you judge folks, I don't want to go off on a tangent to the circle here folks, although in my next future blog I will tell you the story of mathematics yes sireee!......................I wonder where 0 (zero) came from?............India! anyone want to challenge me? lets go.....:)
Architecture Schools are teaching architecture students how not to learn construction technology, they are trying to teach standard text book stuff, the things you can't learn from! maybe the course needs to be recreated? or the books torn up like in Dead Poet's Society......Robbin Williams rest in peace! you were always a star, you made it, you dreamed it and you got what you exactly wanted in life....I am sorry you are not here today, such a great actor, such a great loss....you were the Jim Carey of your generation, and there's so much we can learn from the 80's!
Go mix fibreglass in cement and feel how light it is to work with the cement, add some fairy liquid now and again and watch the bubbles, then shape and pour the concrete in Vaseline coated plastic reinforced shuttering screwed together, let the cement set, and watch the bubbles slowly come to the surface, use the layering technique to take things further, I won't go into too much detail here folks...but you get my drift.
On the other hand the JCT contract is a waste of paper, did you know if you photocopied, any JCT contract it would come out black, how convenient, so now I have used all the ink in my photocopier..........green indeed!