Architect or Gypsy?

I was reading parts of Space Adjacency Analysis by Edward T. White last night...dont worry, it's a snooze fest if you are not an Architect or Interior Designer. It's actually a snooze fest regardless of who you are. In any event, it got me thinking about my own career path and how I have fell into a world that very few architects dare to go. Yes, the deep dark mysterious world of Interior Design.

I dont know why I said that, it's not that mysterious, an interior designers world mostly consists of what they can pull off inside a building where an architect's world consists of what buildings they can pull off.

Mystery solved.

As of modern times designers and architects dont get along very well. We each are convinced that we can't do each others job. Which is complete bullshit for the most part because what designers always seem to forget is that architects go to school for all aspects of creating a building...Which includes designing the damn thing. Designers aren't forced to learn the boring, tedious part of the profession: sections, details, door schedules, municipal codes and what not. They have the luxury of always being able to say, "we'll get an architect to figure out the details." In fact, it gets to a point now that desginers can't even call architects "architects"; we get the glorious term of "technical". How personable is that?

I started out in a traditional architectural firm...We didn't have designers, we had architects...Everyone went to architecture school and was respected for it. For the type of architecture that was practiced at Miller Hanson Partners, they did pretty good for themselves and I was honored to be apart of it. That was Minnesota.

2000 rolls around and I find myself back in Chi-Illa and working at another great architecture firm only this time it was in their Architectural Interior department. At Lucien LaGrange Architects, my group designed the interiors of high-end residential condos. It was a blast and I learned a hell of a lot in a short time...You aint seen money till you worked on a 10million dollar condo. Hammer spent 10 mil on a mansion...We built-out 10 mil in one condo. HammerTime never felt so good...Anyway, there were no interior designers to be found.

Then I end up at VOA, in the Corporate Interiors Department. And all there is around me is rich white male managers and pretty female interior designers, I will get into the social dynamic in another blog, but for now just know that its hard enough being a black male in architecture; but when you have to add the fact that you don't have big boobs and blonde hair it makes getting respect 10times as hard.

The pic above is me on a road trip with the architecture department in VOA. We took a tour bus downstate in Illinois to see 3 projects they built on the University of Illinois campus. Now the buildings were great, the interiors however sucked. Their interior designers dont sweat the details and stick to picking out colors and carpets. My groups interior design projects are amazing spaces because....prepare for the horn tootin'....I am one of 3 architect the 35 person group has and its our job to make the designers good ideas, great ideas.

Ok, I am cutting this blog short because I have to go to work...yes it's sunday morning...but someone has to make all those good ideas, great ones.

And now, Door #3:
http://mondaymichiru.com/

Maron and I had the pleasure of seen Monday Michiru at the Hot House...we ran into a friend who had was equals to box seats...if you never been to the Hot House here in Chicago, its a small joint so when you get a booth that's raised 1 foot off the floor, its a box seat dammit.

Monday is a beautiful woman with an incredible voice and the Asian-Afro-Latin sounds her band creates are truly mezmerizing...

Enjoy,
DjD