It’s mid September, of the year two-thousand-and-fourteen, and I’m in the infancy of my Senior year at Lewis and Clark College. I find this to be a particularly rich time for reflection, although I shouldn’t pause long as I have quite a bit of work to do! I mean to say, that at the beginning of my Senior year I find myself with an extraordinary amount of stuff to look forward to (thesis, graduation, “the real world,” and much more that we’ll address in a moment), as well as a giant sum of past experiences upon which to reflect.
My career at LC began in the fall of 2010! Yes, that long ago! I came into the Environmental Studies program an eager little spirit with a dream of changing the world. My naïveté was most certainly apparent to my professors, who broke the news to me in a manner more stimulating than defeating. The lesson was this: the world is more complex and fascinating than one could even imagine, and the possibilities of exploring this complexity and making a different difference are as varied and interesting as each individual who dives into this life with a critical mind. No aspect of this way of seeing the world need be crippling, in fact, seeing the world as a dynamic system of action and impact has inspired me to think that that which might appear as a small act of benevolence could lead to a range of positive changes seemingly distal to the original intention. By the same token, the complexity of this life could take your deeds, however well intentioned they may be, and toss them into the world only to engender more conflict and hardship. Again, the lesson here shouldn’t be disheartening, only a warning to think carefully about what we do everyday and within our life’s work.
Through a set of formative experiences abroad and in the classroom, I grew to want a vehicle or system of my own in which to navigate the opportunities and pitfalls of our complex world. I wanted this vehicle to be tangible, social, productive (and potentially destructive, in a regenerative sense), and academic. After a time of searching for an area or field to suit these ambitions (and the help of professors, friends, parents, and some focused work in 220) I decided Architecture could provide the opportunity and balance to create the fulfillment and critically-examined contribution that I wanted. For a time it seemed that whatever questions I had, I found answers to in Architecture. That’s not to say they were always the best answers for me, but whatever challenge I sought there was a response floating around somewhere within the discipline. From philosophy classes at LC to fieldwork in history and cultural anthropology in Kenya; from art studios to art history and psychology, I was able to seek out and apply some tidbits of architectural knowledge/inquiry to my studies.
Architecture has become my passion and my pursuit because it is as broad and complex as the world we live in, as well as tangible and focusable enough to create a critical and reflexive situated impact. Architecture considers many things, and could be called transdisciplinary. Architecture is an artistic, social and dynamic process that creates relevant places that become part of peoples lives. Furthermore, these places themselves take on lives of their own, are social in how they interact with people and environs, are political, economic, ecological, and so much more. Buildings are added on to, deconstructed, remodeled, all culminating in a hybrid of ideas and changes, decisions and ways of viewing/being in the world.
I want my work in environmental studies to culminate in a contribution to the field of architecture. As a current student in an academic institution, I would take my position as an opportunity to focus on the theoretical side of architecture and complete a work that contributes to the scholarly aspect of the field. However, in the future I hope to design physical spaces, and define meaningful places, that real people experience everyday.
It is in this spirit of hopeful inquiry that I name my blog and with the motto of theory+action that I direct my research and my work.
“For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” ― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“Education is not merely by and for the sake of thought, it is in a still higher degree by and for the sake of action. Just as the man of science must think and experiment alternately, so too must artist, author and scholar alternate creation or study with participation in the life around them. For it is only by thinking things out as one lives them, and living things out as one thinks them, that a man or society can really be said to think or even live at all.“
–Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932): biologist, sociologist, geographer and Town Planner