At Architecture

The human body can only do so much without the need for others. One cannot even write without the labor and energy of the universe around. One cannot eat, drink, love, without needing interaction. So what is there that solely affects our being?

Sleep. 

Sleep is how we spend 1/3 of our lives, it is how we rejuvenate and have the physical capacity to participate in our meta-physical endeavours. Can you have a thought without others? Does a thought exist if it is not enacted on another? Do you belong solely in your physical body, or are you scattered across the universe existing in the synapses of ideas that affect you?

Once the human capacity is reached, we are compelled to collaborate, for food, for shelter, for science, for comedy. This collaboration brings about innovation. 

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the weather.”
-Bill Hicks

What is the hindrance to this? Misunderstanding of the sense of self, which breeds oppression. We’re led to believe we own things, and this is because others claim this and we don’t want to be on the other end. We equate ownership with existence. And that is the one religion that unites us: existence. So we hoard, we do not share, we put up walls and only let people in when they figure out our ‘friend’ puzzle. Those on the outside are then denied this collaboration, this heightening of existence. They are oppressed. The result is, they retaliate with their own walls. They retaliate with art, they retaliate with religion. 

Home is the heart of architecture. The importance of architecture is tied to how we live. How we live is tied to where we sleep. Were we sleep is what we call home. 

Home is where the center of hoarding has evolved to be. It is the place where your ‘friends’ are allowed. It is the place where you’re most intimate self lies, and conversely it is the place where you most want to show off who you are. 

So what we are left with is an oppressed communal self, and we are left with an oppressed central self. 

The solution is a simultaneous expansion and contraction of the idea of home. Our living room is our community gym; our kitchen is our neighborhood diner. Everyone becomes your best friend simply by existing. Our sleep is solitary, that space is our own, and it is all we need, no unwanted sounds, light, ideas, the ultimate secure feeling, to be naked without shame. 

How does this idea bump into the contemporary? What becomes of the architecture of the home? And finally, can architecture of a single unit enable expression?

The price of rice in China

So I presented my work for the first time today. I'm terrible at words when it comes to this idea I have. The problem is that I don't want to misrepresent the whole  of the idea, but the problem is I don't think my idea fits words exactly. It's a feeling that encompasses many many things going on at the same time. You could say I'm studying the communal sense of self. You could say I'm studying special oppression. But there are so many layers and definitions within those topics that only I have defined and the words I used to define them are tailored just for me. This is where I trip up. When people hear things like selfish, or hoarding, or communism, they get triggered to go on a tangent on their own.

So, suffice to say I looked and felt crazy today. :/

But after thinking about it, I think there was a success. A professor that I had always respected was talking to me about my project today and I was able to find her point where she started to push back. We are always told to think and let all the possibilities flow. But I was able to successfully peel back her layers and see where she drew her lines. Just a secret thesis study.

She gave me a very hard question to think about. So much so that I was sitting outside zoned out and a fellow student whom I didn't know remarked to me, "trying to untangled your thesis?"  I have been stressing about the possibility that my idea is not architecture related. Or perhaps, I am asking too much of architecture. I think that will be the question I will be attacking the rest of the year. The concept gives me a refreshing sense of absolute panic.

What if architecture is life? Is architecture only a coat of paint on culture and quality of life? Or can architecture spark innovation? Can it cleanse the soul in such a way that we lay down our weapons of religion, nationality, race and embrace each other as humans? And if it can't, what can?

The home is the heart of your meta existence. You go there every night and rejuvenate. Can a perfect setting center you in such a way to promote the communal sense of self? Can it put you in flow with the universe?

The price of rice in China should affect architecture. Can architecture be that sensitive to the exact time in which it is realized that it acts as a time stamp of mankind? Is that perfection? Beauty?