playing catch up

As I sit here in the studio after  my “nap” this morning, watching the clouds race along the Atlanta skyline, I am realizing just how close our wedding is. Ashley has been giving me “___ days left” updates every time I see her, but for the most part they only served to re-enforce how far away December seems, but this morning I realized that 57 days is going to be over sooner than I can imagine. It seems it was earlier this week that I made Ashley a card for our 11 month milestone, but our One year landmark is next weekend. And as I become more immersed in my school work, I get home on Friday nights and realize that an entire week has passed. The next 6 weeks is going to crazy, awesome, tiring, blurred, exhausting, stressful, exciting, overwhelming and wonderful.

The wedding invites went out last weekend, and we have already gotten responses from our most on the ball relatives. Everyone has commented on the uniqueness of the invitation; a collaborative effort that took more time to talk about and revise than to actually make. It completely and accurately represents the wishes of both Ashley and I. It was a lot of work to do the ourselves, we probably saved 100 bucks or more, and I would definitely do it again.

On another note, my younger brother from another mother, Pete Melton, just had his first born son yesterday!! Parker MICHAEL Melton was born at like 1am after 20 hrs of labor, but he is tall, healthy, and has a great future ahead of him. Ashley got a card for them and we both wrote some words of encouragement for them. Its amazing to me to see how much Pete has developed over the past 8 months. He truly is someone I would like to stand next to. I would like to check up on him more regularly to see how things are going for them. I hope that we will have a son of our own someday, God willing.

Tonight I’ve got some bro time planned with Mr. David Geigerman himself for a night of steaks and other man stuff. This is in response to Ashley’s girl time with her new friend, Belky/i. Tomorrow is a busy day with oil changes, IKEA, tuxedo stuff, and the new comers BBQ [which I made a pamphlet for] at the Harmons. Its going to be a packed day, followed by a busy Sunday. We are meeting with the Browns for the second session of the Bondage Breaker. Its a great book that identifies issues of bondage in your life and ways to break out of it. It mostly all stems from giving Satan power that he doesn’t have. Its amazing how many issues Ashley and I are tackling together before we get married. If you had told me all of this back in April, I wouldn’t have believed you. God does amazing things when you trust in Him!

Thats all for now. I need to get back to my project models/drawings and my paper called “This is not about Rem Koolhaas.” Can you guess what its about?

Here is the Resolution logo on the cover of the pamphlet:

Professions [from the twisted/ideal architect’s perspective]

Hear is a diagram in progress of what is the ideal organization of professions from the architects perspective. Comments are appreciated.

1 Samuel

This morning I finished the book of 1 Samuel, and through it all, I realized that I had never directly read any of this book before now. The book covers the end of the period that Israel was ruled by a series of Judges during times of war up to David becoming King. The Israelites ask God for a King , instead of the Judges, because they want to be like the other nations, but this went against God’s plan for Israel to depend on Him for leadership. Israel is falling apart under the leadership of the last Judge and High Priest, Eli, who had become so desensitized to the workings of God that he couldn’t tell the difference between a woman praying with great anguish or a drunk woman. At one point, he valued/worshiped the Ark of the Covenant as if IT were God. Samuel is raised by Eli but protected by God, and eventually becomes the leader while God transitioned Israel into a monarchy. When Israel asks God for a King, Samuel prophesies that if they are ruled by a king he will take some of their possessions, enlist the strongest men in the army, and take the most beautiful women as servants in his palace [all of which becomes true of course].

Samuel leads Israel and unifies the nation for the first time in a century. He acts as a Priest, Leader, and General. God uses Samuel to anoint the first King of Israel: Saul, who was revered as the greatest warrior in the army. He gains the trust of the people by defeating the Ammonites [but not to the standard God called him to] and begins his reign as King. Israel is threatened by the Philistines during his entire time as king, and would go to battle often. At one battle, a young man named David, defeats Goliath, the largest and strongest soldier in the Philistine Army. Saul gives favor to him and takes him as his own son in the palace.

During his time at the palace, David develops the greatest model of man friendship I’ve ever seen with Saul’s biological son, Jonathon, who was also a great warrior. When Saul grows jealous of David and tries to kill him, Jonathon tells David ahead of time so he can run away. Before they separated, they wept. How many guy friendships have you seen that would weep at the thought of being separated? Not many, if any. Theirs is a friendship that I would like to study more and learn how bromances really ought to be.

Eventually Saul loses God’s favor because of his disobedience [not a good place to be] and his rule as King rapidly goes downhill. He goes between hunting David and defending Israel against the Philistines. God cuts him off and no longer gives him advice, and Saul becomes so desperate that he consults a spiritual medium to raise the spirit Samuel, who has been dead for a few months at least, so he could try to get advice from him. Its amazing to me how desperate Saul was to speak to God once he was cut off from Him. It served as a reminder to me to stay in God’s will, or else find myself, and presumably my family, cut off from God. Not a place where I want to be.

The book ends with the defeat of Israel’s army and, after he is wounded by an arrow, Saul takes his own life to avoid the humiliation that the Philistines would surely bring on him [they still humiliate his dead body]. Saul, and his sons are killed that day, and Israel is left in shambles.

The people wanted a king so they could be like the other nations, and I think they got exactly what they asked for. They got the troubles and hardships of a nation that didn’t recognize God as their true leader. I see many parallels today with our country, and the hardships we face as a nation that doesn’t recognize God as its leader and tries to push Him further away their lives. It is my hope and prayer that we may one day become a nation ruled by God and not by men, so that we may fully experience the blessings that God has for us. Amen.

[Graduate] Architecture Education

In my design studio this semester we have been having an ongoing discussion about the past, present and future of design education. This has in turn spilled over into my other [theory] classes and has developed into the concentration of what little free time I have.

There is an opinion out there that poses architectural education to be some kind of open door humanitarian effort with the aim of bringing everyone to their level and creating an environment where everyone is an architect and no one is at the same time. They hold up ideas of collaboration as a means to achieve something higher, and to a certain extent I believe they may be on to something, but involvement of other professions into architecture can be dangerous to the field itself. The mentality/thought process of non-design professions are usually in no way similar and are often opposite to those in architecture. The debate of collaboration could go on for eternity, but my point here is actually a question for design education at large: Why can’t architects/designers be educated in the other professions? Architects often claim to have some sort of legitimate knowledge of other professions like engineering, Sociology, and Liberal Arts. Why not validate these claims through a more extensive education process that ultimately not only creates architects who design buildings, but professionals who have a grasp on the entire world around them. I have prepared an image that conveys the position of architecture education relative to a university/institute campus:

There is another branch of this discussion that involves the interconnectivity of the architectural education network. With tools like the internet becoming extensions of our own mind and body, information is being passed back and forth between students and faculty of multiple architecture schools of varying missions. The result is a generation of students who will not only have an education from the institution from which they graduate but and indirect education from other schools through peers and media. I made a comment to a friend of mine today about this idea that went like this: “The future of design education may not, for much longer, continue to happen in isolated schools of architecture, but rather in satellites of one nation/world wide design program.” This invoked an image of a new world order and thoughts of big brother, but I feel that this statement is not very far from the truth, and instead just misinterpreted. Using social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and the other one, as well as media broadcasting sites like YouTube and others, Everything down to the classroom experience can be transmitted across the globe. It is no longer necessary [and probably hasn’t been for years] to attend a school to receive and education from it, if an education is the acquisition of knowledge and not just a piece of paper that you are handed at the end of a stage.