Red and Blue or Purple

After looking at so many maps of the United States lately with the typical red state blue state highlights that basically divide the country into what the red candidates have come to call "real America" and the rest that question them are somehow un-American or part of "Fake America". So much of the focus of the election from both sides is on small rural towns which make up a great deal of physical space but not population. Everything looks clearly divided along state lines and each state is characterized in one way or another. Fortunately things are not so clear cut and if you add just a little more information to the typical maps maybe you can see what real America is made of. Not something that you can just cut down to a single message or soundbite. Adding information such as a more generous scale to the subtleties of voting and population density to redraw the map, maybe this is more what America really looks like:

As Barack Obama said back in 2004 and this map shows, "there's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."

I do believe we will be either voting for or against America this election, it's just a matter of if you believe in red and blue or purple.

more maps here

Enough

October 4 is going to be a big day for us, clearly, but November 4 will be bigger—for everyone. Wedding plans have taken a backseat lately as we have been consumed with nightly politics and, honestly, I've had enough. Enough of the crap, enough of the lies, enough of the ridiculous state of American government and media. Enough of the "reality" that these people think we're that stupid. How does it make you feel to know that the possible future President and VP think they can lie, flat out, to your face, repeatedly, on a daily basis, just make things up, fabricate their own "facts" and honestly BELIEVE you'll never know the difference. Or, even worse, if you do know the difference, that you won't care.

Wow. How did we get here?

As someone who just lost her job due to a horrific economy, I watch, mouth agape, head shaking, embarrassed and enraged. Aren't there actual issues to discuss? Real problems to solve? Tough realities to face? Oh yeah, that's what that other guy is talking about, has been talking about and will continue to talk about. This isn't a reality show or a soap opera or fodder for trash Hollywood tabloids. This is my country. And I deserve a president who recognizes that my country does not belong to him, to play with as he pleases. I deserve a president who knows it belongs to me and you and our families and our friends and that we care what he does with it. Enough is enough.

On November 4, one month after *boy and I say "I do," we will vote for the guy who's had enough and plans to make things better.

Conservative but still concerned? Read this. Then read this: Christians for Obama

Inanimate Objects

I sit here typing this post on my brand new Macbook Pro while my five year old Powerbook is sitting on the coffee table running though diagnostic tests. I unpacked my new computer, gave it a once over and turned it on. OsX asked if I would like to port my documents, settings, and applications from my old computer and I said yes. What a huge time saver. I closed all my files on the old computer, plugged in a firewire cable and pressed restart. The new computer waited a minute and then said: "please plug in a volume with OsX installed." I unplugged the firewire cable and restarted the old computer only to have the apple come up for a minute and then it just shuts down... every time I restart. Not a happy Apple.

I'm reading The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain De Botton and just finished a short section titled Consolation on Frustration describing the philosophies of Seneca. It goes on to talk about the idea of inanimate objects and that one may believe they do things to purposefully cause pain and aggravation. Blaming a wall or chair when you stub your toe or feeling that your computer is intending to disobey your commands when you ask it to give up it's files and retire. Good timing I guess, now what about inanimate objects having feelings of abandonment and neglect?

Synthetic Landscapes

Living in the city forces me to live within manufactured landscapes in my everyday life. I am forced to watch planet Earth DVDs to see the natural beauty and phenomena of nature. On rare occasions nature intervenes and wreaks havoc on the city in the form of a heavy white blanket. It merges the well distinguished zones of infrastructure and circulation into a continuous landscape that disregards all humans attempts to organize nature. We can't sweep it away fast enough to remember where we are suppose to walk and drive our cars and cross the street.

As an architect I feel I am constantly trying to blur the definition of the distinct zones because if we can merge the functions we won't need so much space and can reduce our footprint in every way. If we don't need as much space there is a chance we might be closer to "natural" nature. Unfortunately most people don't want to walk in the street or drive on the lawn let alone work in the same zip code they live in. We leave our homes to heat themselves while we go to an empty office that was kept warm all night so we will be comfortable when we get there. I live in the city that is so dense yet everything is separated and distinct. I can't help but think a farmer living and working on a farm is living a much more urban life by layering all of life's needs in one place.

We associate urban life with density and rural life with wide expanses but the opposite may be true. True urban and rural life are not all that different, within a few acres of land both can get everything they need, there are just more or less people around. It is suburban life that is striving to merge the two that is choking nature and pushing the rural and urban conditions further and further apart.

Our dependence on automated transportation as an everyday commonplace is forcing us to travel further and further perpetuating the problem. Industry and consumption blind common sense and skew human existence into a wasteful self perpetuating machine. We are constantly spreading ourselves further and further apart thus the quality of our life, relationships, and by default nature are all suffering. We use technology and consumption to attempt to mend these rifts only to move further away. It is only through the perseverance of nature that we get intermittent reminders of true beauty and the frailty of our existence and shortcomings to understand true human nature and what is necessary.

This post was meant to be a short introduction and photographs of the beautiful work of Tara Donovan but I distracted myself. Another day.

Not Such an Accident

*girl may have thought running into New Museum was an accident but I have to admit, I was looking at the museum's website a week before going to NYC. I did not, however, know the exact location so it was a surprise when we ran directly into it. The lecture given by Ryue Nishizawa, on the other hand, was a delightful coincidence. I attempted to see his partner, Kazuyo Sejima, twice last winter at the GSD only to have the lecture postponed and then canceled due to weather.

I first became acquainted with the work of Sejima three and a half years ago while working on my thesis project at Syracuse University. Between the works of Sejima and Herzog & DeMeuron, my fundamental ideas of what architecture is and how it functions changed significantly. The key word that ties all of this work together is atmosphere. When *girl wrote about the work she used the terms ephemeral, light, air and beauty. This all speaks to things that many imagine are outside the realm of architecture - until your fundamental idea of how architecture operates is changed.

When thinking of architecture as the creation of atmosphere, your focus shifts from the manipulation of walls and large architectural objects to the very nature of how you perceive those walls. You realize that you must choreograph these elements, make them perform, to manipulate the experience of the space. Then architecture is no longer about defining rooms but about designing spatial atmospheres that can transcend the built environment. "Atmosphere" is an all-encompassing vision of spatial experience, beyond spatial ideas and formal manipulations of space that preoccupied many traditionally modern architects. It is no wonder that the work of SANAA, Sejima and Nishizawa often have the most beautiful, simple and functional plans and forms - all because their time is spent realizing the intangible qualities of the world around us, harnessing them to create beautiful experiences and atmospheres which happen to be called architecture.

When I presented my thesis project, it was clear on which side of the line people stood when it came to asking the question "What is architecture?" I heard, "I don't get it, it's just a big open space with a bunch of columns, how is this architecture?" but I also had the leading theory professor whispering in my ear, "Your project is the only project worth looking at," meaning that at the very least I was challenging the concepts of what architecture could be.

I still can see it both ways. Maybe I would be more eloquent describing my project while trying to speak Japanese.

A few images of my humble thesis project:

Fading to Black

Corresponding to the release of the fourth generation iPod, Apple began a new advertising campaign featuring the now ubiquitous silhouette dancers. However, the iPod featured in these ads (and all future silhouette advertising) is not the iPod that Apple sells. Squint yours eyes at the lineup below and its easy to see that Apple is clearly advertising #2: my beloved 3rd generation, all-touch, all-white iPod. It just so happens that following the release of this inferior iPod (reintroducing moving parts and compromising the design essence) it turned into a wild success. Up to that point Apple has sold about 1-2 million iPods over a 2 year period. They sold about 20 million in that holiday season alone.


One might assume that the graphic in the ad is simply an icon, containing only the bare-bone characteristics that make an iPod an iPod - white body, gray screen, headphones - because it doesn't seem to change with the times. This would explain why the gray wheel has never appeared. The iPod changes but the iCon remains the same. But when the 5th generation iPod was released with its well-endowed screen (clearly a selling point), lo and behold, that little gray box on the ads grew bigger, too. So why then is the gray click wheel still left out? Is it not a selling point, as well? If they are so proud of the click wheel as one of the "distinguishing features" of the iPod, why not include it in the advertising?

I have not been able to figure out why the click wheel turned grey. All other functional and aesthetic changes have been justifiable, even the fact that my not-so-outdated PowerBook cannot connect to the new iPods has some basis (because Apple has deleted firewire). I can't imagine Jonathan Ives would disagree that the simplicity of the all-white iPod has been compromised. Clearly the advertising agency knows what looks good and the grey wheel doesn't make the cut.

From a design perspective, I can't figure out why they made this change. It forces the circle of the click wheel to compete with the rectangular screen, creating an awkward relationship of simple forms. This was slightly addressed by making the wheel smaller on the 5th generation where we come to the future trend of the iPod: black. The black iPod is a reminder that this is a different time - my old PowerBook's subtly curving sides and glowing apple that is right-side up when it faces me, closed, and only upside-down when I can't see it because the computer is open. Maybe when the apple flipped so did the company. It became less about my personal connection with my computer and more about how I looked with it.

How does this relate to the iPod? The gray wheel is now avoidable but I now have to buy a black iPod with all-white accessories. Could this be why the headphones disappeared from the official iPod images seen in the lineup above? It seems inevitable that the next iPod will have to be essentially the iPhone, a product for which there is no white in sight but still comes with white headphones. The Clickwheel will be gone but the earbuds have taken its place.

As such an innovative company Apple seems to be scared of losing it's new found success and holds on to design icons when they make no aesthetic sense. No wonder it has been almost 5 years since a true redesign of the PowerBook, or MacbookPro as it is now called. They changed the name, the system and the processor but the design has remained constant. Apple designs have won many awards but seem to be in a holding pattern while their success keeps escalating. This method might work with some companies - such as Porsche, constantly refining a vision to a pure form - but Apple seems to be making poor design choices based on pop culture success and advertising iconography rather than looking hard at the actual product and refining it based solely on design.

To me, the gray wheel represents a tipping point into the dilution of Apple's design vision that just so happened to coincide with the success of the iPod. I will stick with my aging, titanium PowerBook and all-white iPod until further notice.