I guess you could call me defensive, but I prefer passionate. Here is my most recent example…
Today, while discussing architectural education, someone mentioned an ethics class that they had taken…that it was clearly not part of the architecture curriculum because, “there are no ethics in architecture!” I think there are ethics in everything, and I think that connections to ethical issues are abundant in the fields of architecture and urban design. If they were not, I would not want to be an architect. I even made the mistake of admitting to my boss during a review that, “I’m not in it for the money” (yeah, guess who didn’t get a raise).
We create our cities and towns and little dirt roads, and our cities and towns and little dirt roads create us. There are obviously many other forces that continuously mold and re-mold us. Perhaps architecture is one force with momentum that is unrealized, or often disregarded by its own creators, the architects. Eventually, I want to become an architect that is fully aware of social, political, and economic issues that I am affecting, and that are affecting me, even if it means that I’ll spend as many hours researching as I will designing. It’s not that I like doing research, it’s that I want to research what I do. I have to; I’m not a very good bull-shitter.
