Been away too long

It's been exactly 20 days since I have posted anything here, and I don't like it. The past few weeks have been quite busy with required work and extra-curricular stuff. Sitting down to write a fairly-intelligent grouping of words turned into several attempts not amounting to anything, and then realizing I had a deadline to meet for something else. But this time I'm back.

Apart from time restraints, I believe the biggest reason for not sharing much publicly is because I am, and have been, chest deep in the 2nd stage of culture shock. Until a few days ago I thought my culture shock was over with when I realized minor differences and somewhat accepted the fact that communicating would be difficult for my stay. But then someone informed me that culture shock is a much longer and complicated experience. To verify, I checked out Wikipedia, and she was right. The 2nd stage is a bitch. The "Negotiation Phase" as it is called is described as "After a few days, weeks, or months, minor differences between the old and new culture are resolved. One may long for food the way it is prepared in one's native country, may find the pace of life too fast or slow, may find the people's habits annoying, etc." This sentence is too nice. Currently, I cannot believe how I find myself disliking some aspects of this city. It does not help that Monterrey really is not a nice city, really, that's not culture shock talking. I even found myself starting to write a blog post describing the things that I did not like, but realized that I did not start this thing to complain or make blanket statements, but rather to put some intelligent (maybe) thoughts out there so that I can organize my thoughts and to hopefully get some good responses. Therefore I will not publicly state what I find annoying or what I currently do not find appealing. I'll save that for emails and instant messages when I can also brag about the nice weather compared to the snow I would normally be in at this time (I still can't believe I get to miss January-March in Muncie, so truly happy about that).

But today I received an email from Bryan Finoki from Subtopia about a little book quote chain that is happening. And I'm using this as a spring board back into writing. And it's working. I keep jotting down notes for several more blog posts in the near future. The rules to the blogtivity (can I claim that word, Google?) are:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.


Well, the nearest book was a tough call as I had a neat stack of three that was impossible to determine which was closer to me (feet, head, hands?). So I opened each to find the most interesting, and I was quite surprised to find a common theme between all three, and even more surprised at how they directly related to a major goal in two of the projects I am working on.

The first book, Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World, by Robert Neuwirth has page 123 in a chapter about Mumbai, India and states "[Sunder] guesses that Dharavi is home to 5,000 small printing businesses, and that there are more than 1,000 businesses related to the clothing industry with more than 50 sewing machines, and perhaps 3,000 businesses with fewer than 50 machines. Although it's impossible to know exactly, since all of these businesses are technically illegal, and therefore don't report income or pay taxes, the total turnover of all these firms probably amounts to $1 million a day. But, of course, even as Dharavi has developed, Mumbai has developed, too." This slice from the book kind of distorts the point of the chapter. In the last sentence, if Dharavi and Mumbai are switched, it would make more sense. The point to be made is that all parts of a city will adjust to survive. This part of the city is viewed by the legal city as an eyesore and a tax burden, but there is a huge amount of money being made here, which is what the legal city is based upon. We do not know if the operations of these businesses are efficient or were planned well, but we do know that they exist, and will continue to exist, on their own. Just because something is ignored does not mean it will simply go away. The ideal situation is to have this area acknowledged and to have it become part of the overall planning process. This is where the other two books step in.

The next book was Good Deeds, Good Design: Community Service Through Architecture, edited by Bryan Bell. Page 123, which is a piece written by Mark S. Goldman titled "The DreamTree Project: Forging Community Relationships," offers us "On the day that I assisted an elder from the Taos Pueblo, a sustainable community since ca. 1200 AD, in a ceremony blessing the DreamTree Shelter and its future residents, I reflected on the enthusiasm of the multicultural staff. Not only had we really created a place for homeless teenagers to be safe, but we had also built a home in which they could live with genuine pride." This is only two sentences because the chapter ends, but it is a good excerpt. The final 3 sentences comes from Studio at Large: Architecture in Services of Global Communities by Sergio Palleroni and Christina Eichbaum Merkelbach. Page 123, which describes a straw-bale house project, tells us "This house changed her life. She has been instrumental in getting several other straw-bale buildings built in the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations, and she has become a more vocal advocate for other issues on the reservation, such as cultural heritage and children's education opportunities. Trailers now form a courtyard behind her house where she runs an after-school study and reading center and a Crow cultural heritage center."

This idea of designing and building something as a catalyst for other things, more than just buildings, still seems like a cool and almost innovative idea; and it upsets me a bit. My fellow students at Ball State and myself have all had this goal in our projects, but it is often not the first step in the design process. Allow me to explain. Early in our education, the idea that your design is the culmination of all the surrounding contexts and functions is very common. Your project will solve any problems in the immediate surroundings. This may have happened in real life a few times, but really it's a design-ego building exercise, and it is difficult to put that aside--that feeling of fixing many problems with one design. The idea of a god working hard for several days and then stepping back and resting as she watches the creation function like clockwork. Well not even the God that is credited with the original creation had a screaming success, so how can a person who has 5-6 years of "superior education?" do better? My point being, it's difficult to alter this approach and to think of your project as a step in the process of many steps.

The studio project I am working on (group project) involves a nearby community that is in an area of constant development. These communities are not necessarily ignored, although there are several informal communities (either placed there by the government after illegally settling somewhere else, or actually settling illegally). But their unique, individual characteristics are not being thoughtfully considered in the master plan, nor are the individual characteristics of the land they are on. The goal of this studio is to start a master plan the evolves from conversations with social workers, urban developers, the people in the community, and with site visits. The project will actually be about 3-4 years, or 6-8 studio projects. We are just the beginning. Now that does not mean that we are half-assing it or anything, but it is a very appropriate and realistic approach to a project that will allow us to monitor what happens next. This is similar to what the book excerpts describe; that the projects had results that extend far beyond AutoCAD or trace-paper. Ideas are born by the people who use the result of the project, and they evolve naturally, not forced from a master plan. Also, the community is not left by itself to fend for itself, as is described in Shadow Cities. The community in the book is successful, but they are still illegal and can be stopped at anytime. It is not the ideal solution.

Another project that has a very defined goal involves the community of San Felipe that I have written about before. The goal of this project is to reintroduce traditional building methods and materials to the community. This reasons are to provide houses that are more comfortable, are sustainable, and have a true sense of place. This prototype house is a clear example of a catalyst for future development.

Well this simple book-quoting-chain thing turned into more writing than I expected, but it is good to be able to share more thoughts. And to finish the deal, here are five blogs that I find interesting, ranging in subject matter: bldgblog (very interesting stuff discovered here), Design Altruism Project (interesting thoughts and work), A Matter of Life and Death (blog of someone that lives in Monterrey), Slums: The Problem (A semi-blog by Lebbeus Woods), Inhabitat (a site that generally has good environmentally-friendly product news).