Immediacy

Reading so many other blogs and news stories about what makes us feel good, I find them dominated by food, clothing, shopping, and technology items. These topics are great and we need and use them. The depth of time that is needed to create great design and construct comfortable homes is beyond the reach of the internet age attention span. How can we as architects, designers, planners ever hope to reach this level of attention for our profession in the digital age? I work with clients that respect the process of architecture. We create a homes improve and mesh the love of food, clothing, shopping, and technology. A great Kitchen and Dining Room to gather with family and friends. A warm and secure residence where our clothing and shopping purchases are properly stored and displayed. Integrating technology into dwellings allows us to seamlessly introduce the latest elements in a subtle or unnoticed manner. Television shows, magazines, and news stories can encapsulate the above concepts into the same amount of time or printed inches, but there is an enormous disparity in the true time of work involved. As a child, shows such as "This Old House" would take an entire season for a renovation or addition, over a dozen shows for the work to be completed, documented by the change of season on the show. Compared with "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," an entire house is razed and another constructed in an hour, condensed from only one week or less of work. The lackluster design results of the "EM:HE" only underscore our impatience for architecture of value. This immediacy is rewarding for the residents, the network sponsors, and the viewers, but cheapens our industry.