onethreenine

1. Architecture should be able to bring sparse and separated communities together through design; pushing forward their culture while simultaneously honoring their past.
3. Communities need a center for bringing people together. The design and building of a community center, health care, library and education facilities, recreational areas and affordable housing will create a nexus for human interaction. This will in turn bring the community closer as a people and help them keep their heritage alive.
9. Many groups like the Native American populations of the Southwest live in poverty and in great distances from each other and communal facilities. In order for them to survive in today’s economy and let their rich cultural voices be heard, they need a community they can call their own. A library and elementary school will improve literacy and prepare children for the outside world. Recreation and community centers will bring people together that otherwise may not have met while a free clinic will ensure their health. Perhaps most importantly, a spiritual center will encourage the sustaining and revitalization of the cultural traditions from their past. If these are combined with well designed low-income housing that embodies (and more importantly, facilitates) this sense of community, lives will noticeably change for the better. The organization of these pieces into a cohesive town plan also plays a central role. The challenge here is to propel a people into the 21st century without sacrificing their history. The Public transportation links and pedestrian oriented development will allow a community to remain secluded but never cut-off from the rest of the world.

...and how about a dash of socialism for flavor?

We have problems. We

over think.

We

take ourselves and what we do too seriously.

And we

surrender creative collaboration to our egos and the ideas of individual greatness.

But all is not lost!

First, stop taking yourselves so seriously and thinking you are so important. We are not. We are a fraction inside a fraction of only what we know. We have one life to be the best we can, why waste it conforming?

Let the dense wooded divergence of what we want to do and what we should do fuel the fire of our creativity! Down with the concepts of the world that have become clouded and gummed up with the soot of the modern world we've built and down with the rubbish of importance and respectability. And let yourself have fun, damn it!

We must steer ourselves out of this sparkling, flashing path towards perfection, and we must remember the ever-eloquent words of Nate-Dogg, "...look real close, cuz strobe lights lie."

Instead, embrace Wabi-sabi: The Japanese notion of finding beauty, perfectness and wholeness in imperfection.

I've tried to discipline myself for years only to realize that I'm a lost case. I admit that I have no self-discipline. I have no self-control. And as much schizophrenic agony it causes my cognitive reasoning, I do what I want, when I want. But by applying this Wabi-Sabi paradigm, I start to understand that it is in this blind following of the heart that one can really learn about himself. His core values, his likes and lusts, his personal religion, his truths, his loves and fears. I feel closer to myself the further I separate my head and my heart.

So in the words of Bruno Taut: "Death to everything stuffy! Death to everything called title, dignity, authority! Down with everything serious!" and down with trying to control everything around you.

This seriousness is what makes us often forget to love each other and embrace the differences in other people, places, cultures, and ourselves. Let the pedestal of the individual crumble! because we. need. each other.

And while we're at it, why don't we apply this thinking to architecture?

Tar and feathering to the serious architects that think they're all-knowing. Design must be about collaboration. The architecture of tomorrow will never be without a cooperation for true solutions to today's problems, and a knowledge that the rigid and "respected" concepts of our world need to be broken to move ahead.

We should want to be taboo.

It is only when we listen to others around us - their opinions, no matter how crazy they may be - that we can listen to ourselves and create this new school for thought. This alliance lets us make new ideas, associations and reasoning within our own minds that we may otherwise have never imagined.

And while it is important to embrace your own opinion and execute it through with conviction, we must never get too serious and must never forget the perfection in imperfection.

So can happiness and creativity coexist? Well not according to Emo music, but if we tackle architecture, life, and the world around us with a reckless abandon and a healthy distrust in convention, ideologies and systems, then yes. And even more. This needs to be the true future of human life.