'Why Do Lawyers Make More Than Architects'? I've asked myself this question a bunch of times, and never really found a satisfactory answer. So I decided to ask ChatGPT, and see what it 'thought.' ChatGPT got the answer wholly wrong, but it got it wrong in the way that society at large gets it wrong, I think. And in all that wrongness, maybe it unintentionally augured close to the real answer. It was an illuminating experiment to run, and hopefully a humorous story to tell. I tell all in this article for Common Edge Collaborative
“It was tempting to come away from the exercise with a deep suspicion about ChatGPT’s ability to reason, but I don’t think that’s it.
I think maybe I was just asking it to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense. All that it is programmed to do is to fashion responses that an informed, competent human would offer. And why would any rational human go through more training, more risk, and more work in order to earn less? Why would any rational human be so passionate about their work product and its value, and then devalue the labor that created the product?
I had given it an impossible circle to square. Architecture’s approach to its own value proposition violates basic laws of risk and reward, supply and demand, etc., so much so that even a genius-level A.I. can’t make heads or tails of it. So maybe we’re the ones who are reasoning backward.”
Check out the article here
To explore the capabilities of Natural Language, Generative AI in architectural practice, I modeled an AI Architect and an AI Client using ChatGPT, Midjourney and other programs and let them design a house together. They did alarmingly well.
The experiment led to a 2 part article in DesignIntelligence Quarterly, as well as some other collateral. You can read the technical addendum on this site here.
I also developed a more speculative exercise, called “The Cult of G.E.N.I.U.S.” which I released on substack in 10 parts. I basically tried to push the limits of current AI technologies, asking which parts of the design cycle could already be replicated by AI and machine learning, and how you might stitch those together to make a full stack, AI Architect. It’s also disturbingly close to reality. You can start with Part 1 here.
A little article I wrote for Boston Architecture on the fallacy of temporary housing. And why architects' attempts to do it just makes suffering permanent. Check it out here.
An article I wrote for Texas Architect Magazine, on the role of architects in the gaming of the built environment for shady investment purposes. A snippet:
The moral imperative: For all the crowing about “health, safety, and public welfare,” architects need to eschew any design process that will ultimately be antagonistic to those purposes. Any building designed to be uninhabited degrades neighborhoods’ public safety, culture, and social welfare.
Check out the article here, or click on the photo
I had the privilege of writing a thought piece in conjunction with Social Design Insights entitled "Is the Right to Housing Real?" As we did on the podcast, we had to ask ourselves why, if everyone thinks that there's a fundamental right to housing, do we have so many problems housing our citizens? What drives that contradiction? Have a read and find out.
Humanitarian Architecture: 15 stories of architects working after disaster is a great book by Dr. Esther Charlesworth. Full of great stories some pretty inspirational architects, and another little interview with yours truly.
A reprint of a chapter of Down Detour Road entitled “The Green Architect.” MIT Press had asked to reprint a chapter for the MIT Reader and as I looked back, my feelings about green technology in 2009 seem to be more true today.
A snippet:
“The Green Architect” describes an evergreen problem: The faster the acceleration in “green” technology, the greater the impetus to replace older, less-efficient models of everything. The more we replace everything, the greater the toll on Earth’s finite resources, and the more junk we commit to the landfill. Our faith in green technology, therefore, is easily misplaced. We can’t solve the climate crisis by replacing our cars, computers, and buildings every few years — even by replacing them with the greenest technology yet invented.
Check out the article here, or click on the photo
What does it say about the value of architecture that as the world faces economic and ecological crises, unprecedented numbers of architects are out of work? This is the question that confronted architect Eric Cesal as he finished graduate school at the onset of the worst financial meltdown in a generation. Down Detour Road is his journey: one that begins off-course, and ends in a hopeful new vision of architecture. Like many architects of his generation, Cesal confronts a cold reality. Architects may assure each other of their own importance, but society has come to view architecture as a luxury it can do without. For Cesal, this recognition becomes an occasion to rethink architecture and its value from the very core. He argues that the times demand a new architecture, an empowered architecture that is useful and relevant. New architectural values emerge as our cultural values shift: from high risks to safe bets, from strong portfolios to strong communities, and from clean lines to clean energy.This is not a book about how to run a firm or a profession; it doesn't predict the future of architectural form or aesthetics. It is a personal story -- and in many ways a generational one: a story that follows its author on a winding detour across the country, around the profession, and into a new architectural reality.
I wrote a chapter for this book once upon a time when the author, Prof. Luescher asked me to write a bit about how I came to do what it is that I do. I told him that most of everything I've ever done was something of an accident, and any plans I ever made about my career were mercifully swept aside by good and bad fortunes.
I wrote a chapter for this book about what happens when Humanitarian Design gets cool, and moves from counter culture to mainstream.