Notes from the Road

I wrote a play some years ago, exploring the relationships and perspectives of three very different people, caught in wartime Afghanistan. At an early stage, my friend Michael Sanie expressed interest in writing an opera based on the play, and after several years of delays and struggles, here it is.

The opera is in three acts, each providing a platform for one of the characters. There is also a fourth character: an Afghan boy. It seems to me that we rarely hear the perspective of the people over whose lands we fight.

You can get your copy here.

It’s well known that architects are poorly paid. With a lengthy degree, followed by three or more years of apprenticeship and professional exams before they can even use the word architect, it seems crazy.

It’s not crazy, even if it is unfair.

I believe that people’s willingness to pay for a service has to do with their sense of criticality: the distance from a crisis. A simple analogy: most yachtsmen are resistant to the cost of a proper life-raft, when they see one in the chandler. No-one intends to have their boat sink, and it seems hard to justify the raft. But the same sailor, when dismasted and holed in the open sea, will happily pay almost any amount for helicopters and other rescue options. Similarly, if you need surgery, your first thought is not the cost, but the quality and experience of the surgeon. If you are up against the IRS, you want an experienced tax advisor, not just a cheap one. (more…)

This is a great TED talk from Alain de Botton. It reflects an idea I’ve struggled with for many years: how to make use of and participate in the great religious ideas without subscribing to all the doctrinal mumbo-jumbo.

He insightfully shows the many virtues of religious practice, and suggests that rather than throwing out the baby with the bathwater, we should be learning from the best practices of religion: ritual, symbolism, organization, mutual support and more.

The Architect magazine this month has a feature on work –  you can learn more at their website – it’s an important topic, because we mostly do too much of it.

On the front page of the article is a drawing that lists some of the activities we enjoy (endure?) in the workplace:

• focus
• nurture
• nourish
• meet
• research
• grow.

It’s a good list, but I think it misses something really important. In my experience there are two very different kinds of focus work.

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Architecture is about the application of ideas to the environment. Bjarke Ingels understands the power of an idea to symbolize our relationship to the environment – both in a spatial sense and in terms of more abstract ideas like sustainability.

In this video he talks about how he has used architecture and master planning to create environments that are a pleasure to be a part of, while offering new perspectives on traditional typologies.