it was September 1989 and I was a
freshman at Syracuse University School
of Architecture that afternoon professor
of ours came into the studio and told us
we had two days to design our ideal
house now I came from fine arts
background I was used to drawing and
painting and still lives and making
small ceramic sculptures of bananas and
apples so I had no idea of what to do
with this idea of an ideal house but
nevertheless two days frantically aside
drawing plans and sections and
elevations and some very very late
perspectives and I put this drawing up
alongside 120 other fellow classmates
drawings now I was totally taken aback
that day because I was amazed at the
sheer imagination and creativity that
came out of those pieces of paper and
then I talked to myself you know there
are tree houses and their houses
underwater there’s houses of modern
houses and minimalist houses and houses
flying through the sky and then I went
back to my drawing and I just looked at
it and I said oh God the right time
and honestly I did not realize it at the
time there’s a total shock my
subconscious had just worked overtime
two days taking control of my hands and
this is what spewed out on that piece of
paper typical suburban house Long Island
New York aluminum siding picture windows
moldings on the door everything almost
verbatim I know it this point sounds a
little bit weird but I was so absolutely
terrified at the thought that I had done
that a lot because I thought he didn’t
have the skills or the skill center
would be able to get the technical
ability to be an architect I just
thought for a moment that and I realized
that I’m basically growing up in this
box for 17 years of my life and this is
the first time that I actually stepped
out and that is a very very scary part
what was outside of this box everything
I didn’t know what was inside the box
Comfort knowledge everything that I
don’t comfortable so at that moment I
knew I knew that was the beginning of
being outside of the box and looking at
new ways to see the world
no untitled yes that’s really what I’m
calling this talk now I’m very lucky
that this realization came at the onset
of my architectural education why
because then I wasn’t being interested
in just getting a degree I just didn’t
we wanted to kind of go through the
motions and be an architect and then
practice for the rest of my life it
actually made me question why I wanted
to do marketing sure and were what the
naturel architecture would be or what
the nature will eventually be to me and
my practice and now this was the more
interesting question and that I had to
kind of solve so now I went through a
process kind of understanding what I
would do where I would go how I would go
about my work and this was kind of in a
way it kind of challenged me to
understand ways of looking at scene so
before I even discuss what it is
that my practice does has a new idea we
have to consider well what is the I mean
how do we define architecture
architectures are defined in many ways
to many different people but for me what
is interesting to the kind of think
about architecture as the art of
questioning the relationship between
ourselves and our environment and if you
think about it in a very broad sense
then from practice like mine it kind of
works because it doesn’t limit to me to
just thinking about architecture and
building spaces but allows me to kind of
experiment with new mediums new forms of
creative expression and also allows that
architectural background and those kind
of new disciplines to kind of affect
each other with their ideas and thoughts
now before I get into my work and what
I’ve been doing for the last seven eight
years let’s consider the normal path of
an architect illustration to kind of
help well stressed
projects ego money and on the bottom we
have factors like time in space so as
the architect graduates from this
tumultuous five years of education and
settles down to the idea of either an
existing practice and going through the
night or maybe starting their own
practice and doing something with that
the cycle is more or less the same get
more projects or just get bigger your
ego inflates you get more money get more
projects to practice grows and you keep
on going through this endless and the
cycle until you basically reach your
ultimate goal which is the architect
hurdling towards the Sun exploding into
a fiery wall and showering the wisdom of
a thousand
on everyone and everything around them
and this is the really the ultimate goal
with the architect but 78 years ago I
really feel up to myself and I was on
this path this dotted line I realized
that that really wasn’t for me I had
forgotten what it was to question the
nature of architecture and I think
that’s where I kind of started to change
my path it started to fall back down and
I ended up not in a kind of linear way
of looking at practice but a little
coach looking at multiple practices
which would all be able to network and
talk to each other so we have
architecture interior design we have
fine arts post pedagogy academics
probably design filmmakers so let’s talk
about projects for example when you’re
giving an interior design project does
an architect always have to sit down and
start drawing plans or thinking about
materials or think about form it’s not
necessary in this case a client comes to
you and says we want you to design
something for our brand and we’ve never
done anything like this before so what
do you do the first thing I did was
actually not go to architecture I went
to a series of images that were
inspiring to kind of look at how I
wanted to design this project and what
is sushi Godzilla the screen sumo
wrestler member laying the product have
to do with their son well so she’s about
structure Godzilla’s about dynamism this
product itself is beautiful as an object
the screen is really about material and
texture anyway the sumo wrestler is
about sumo wrestling and bamboo is about
Maya care and quality of life in nature
so if you see the design they kind of
all embody
ideas that are kind of behind those
could be a project which I’ve curated
for five years for Columbia University
studio-x can an architect be a kind of
mediator of
discourse on the future seeds can they
talk between architects and Urbanists
philosophers educators activists
musicians historians and discuss where
the cities are going in the future this
project needs to do it was and in this
case the architect wasn’t the only
person working on this project
the architect couldn’t answer all the
questions we had NGO advocacy we had
research and data analysts also kind of
narrating and recording this
documentation of the lives of people
who’ve been living on the same road for
32 years
the architect just became this kind of
coalesce of ideas eventually the
information was a kind of integration of
many different perspectives when an NGO
comes to you and says we want you to
design something spatial for us for a
public installation but we want you to
invoke the kind of creativity and the
feeling of a child within you in the
piece it’s a very very tall in this case
of course part of the problem was solved
by seeing my son work on Legos when he
was about four and a half and he said
let’s just make a big oversized set of
Legos and talk to them in the world and
his car the road so the spatial idea was
taken care of but what about the kind of
emotion of that emotion how do I make
people feel like children well I took to
the streets with my smartphone and they
said they started making films and these
tools are actually embedded within a
solution within the boxes so you have
things like people drawing ideas or
imaginations on your page and Sam –
groups of things flying through the sky
airplanes birds have the perpetual
making of cotton candy and
a child or adult it could be a project
for the coaching zeros big holiday that
we did last year I was very fortunate to
work on two projects this was called
happy media it was a public installation
of course these are all collaborating
and mostly in nature and I love to well
can an architect be a kind of urban
designer and an artist at the same time
yes in this case we basically proposed
an urban infrastructure but very playful
in nature therefore three months to the
other holidays and you actually see
people using this is all me out of the
recycled material that was bought from
the coaching life is really an assembled
on its circumvents and subverts the idea
of what the city is and used in a new
idea pipe so could it also be about an
architect masquerading as an artist in
this case I was working on research on
the idea of home which for me dealt with
the imaginations of people had in terms
of how they learned to live around the
world this basically formed a
three-dimensional construct which ended
up as a kind of physical art piece
called reliance and models of ideas of
how people with good can architectural
drawing or the fine arts be a way of
drawings and multimedia kind of forms of
expression and interpretation which
always helped me in my architectural
practice it’s not just about building
buildings I’m working on recently which
are called extra architectural because
they’re basically looking at kind of
regenerating the idea of looking at
everything to do knowledge and we make
things in the computer and then we build
these things straight from the computer
but what about our hands our senses
other senses trying to bring these
drawings outside into a new life so in
short I think every discipline has an
opportunity to expand itself potential
and for me architecture has been one of
those things where I’ve looked at kind
of new ways of seeing the world around
me and understanding that space the
relationship we have with our
environment is changing in terms of the
present and in the future such a rapid
pace I don’t think we can define
ourselves by one name of one people or
consider doing one thing for the rest of
our lives if anything the projects that
are kind of taking on at this scale and
allowed me to explore new ways of seeing
the world spaces now how many times has
somebody come up to a situation of a
filmmaker a product designer could be an
educator a teacher I’m always a father
I’m always a husband that’s fine but else
freshman at Syracuse University School
of Architecture that afternoon professor
of ours came into the studio and told us
we had two days to design our ideal
house now I came from fine arts
background I was used to drawing and
painting and still lives and making
small ceramic sculptures of bananas and
apples so I had no idea of what to do
with this idea of an ideal house but
nevertheless two days frantically aside
drawing plans and sections and
elevations and some very very late
perspectives and I put this drawing up
alongside 120 other fellow classmates
drawings now I was totally taken aback
that day because I was amazed at the
sheer imagination and creativity that
came out of those pieces of paper and
then I talked to myself you know there
are tree houses and their houses
underwater there’s houses of modern
houses and minimalist houses and houses
flying through the sky and then I went
back to my drawing and I just looked at
it and I said oh God the right time
and honestly I did not realize it at the
time there’s a total shock my
subconscious had just worked overtime
two days taking control of my hands and
this is what spewed out on that piece of
paper typical suburban house Long Island
New York aluminum siding picture windows
moldings on the door everything almost
verbatim I know it this point sounds a
little bit weird but I was so absolutely
terrified at the thought that I had done
that a lot because I thought he didn’t
have the skills or the skill center
would be able to get the technical
ability to be an architect I just
thought for a moment that and I realized
that I’m basically growing up in this
box for 17 years of my life and this is
the first time that I actually stepped
out and that is a very very scary part
what was outside of this box everything
I didn’t know what was inside the box
Comfort knowledge everything that I
don’t comfortable so at that moment I
knew I knew that was the beginning of
being outside of the box and looking at
new ways to see the world
no untitled yes that’s really what I’m
calling this talk now I’m very lucky
that this realization came at the onset
of my architectural education why
because then I wasn’t being interested
in just getting a degree I just didn’t
we wanted to kind of go through the
motions and be an architect and then
practice for the rest of my life it
actually made me question why I wanted
to do marketing sure and were what the
naturel architecture would be or what
the nature will eventually be to me and
my practice and now this was the more
interesting question and that I had to
kind of solve so now I went through a
process kind of understanding what I
would do where I would go how I would go
about my work and this was kind of in a
way it kind of challenged me to
understand ways of looking at scene so
before I even discuss what it is
that my practice does has a new idea we
have to consider well what is the I mean
how do we define architecture
architectures are defined in many ways
to many different people but for me what
is interesting to the kind of think
about architecture as the art of
questioning the relationship between
ourselves and our environment and if you
think about it in a very broad sense
then from practice like mine it kind of
works because it doesn’t limit to me to
just thinking about architecture and
building spaces but allows me to kind of
experiment with new mediums new forms of
creative expression and also allows that
architectural background and those kind
of new disciplines to kind of affect
each other with their ideas and thoughts
now before I get into my work and what
I’ve been doing for the last seven eight
years let’s consider the normal path of
an architect illustration to kind of
help well stressed
projects ego money and on the bottom we
have factors like time in space so as
the architect graduates from this
tumultuous five years of education and
settles down to the idea of either an
existing practice and going through the
night or maybe starting their own
practice and doing something with that
the cycle is more or less the same get
more projects or just get bigger your
ego inflates you get more money get more
projects to practice grows and you keep
on going through this endless and the
cycle until you basically reach your
ultimate goal which is the architect
hurdling towards the Sun exploding into
a fiery wall and showering the wisdom of
a thousand
on everyone and everything around them
and this is the really the ultimate goal
with the architect but 78 years ago I
really feel up to myself and I was on
this path this dotted line I realized
that that really wasn’t for me I had
forgotten what it was to question the
nature of architecture and I think
that’s where I kind of started to change
my path it started to fall back down and
I ended up not in a kind of linear way
of looking at practice but a little
coach looking at multiple practices
which would all be able to network and
talk to each other so we have
architecture interior design we have
fine arts post pedagogy academics
probably design filmmakers so let’s talk
about projects for example when you’re
giving an interior design project does
an architect always have to sit down and
start drawing plans or thinking about
materials or think about form it’s not
necessary in this case a client comes to
you and says we want you to design
something for our brand and we’ve never
done anything like this before so what
do you do the first thing I did was
actually not go to architecture I went
to a series of images that were
inspiring to kind of look at how I
wanted to design this project and what
is sushi Godzilla the screen sumo
wrestler member laying the product have
to do with their son well so she’s about
structure Godzilla’s about dynamism this
product itself is beautiful as an object
the screen is really about material and
texture anyway the sumo wrestler is
about sumo wrestling and bamboo is about
Maya care and quality of life in nature
so if you see the design they kind of
all embody
ideas that are kind of behind those
could be a project which I’ve curated
for five years for Columbia University
studio-x can an architect be a kind of
mediator of
discourse on the future seeds can they
talk between architects and Urbanists
philosophers educators activists
musicians historians and discuss where
the cities are going in the future this
project needs to do it was and in this
case the architect wasn’t the only
person working on this project
the architect couldn’t answer all the
questions we had NGO advocacy we had
research and data analysts also kind of
narrating and recording this
documentation of the lives of people
who’ve been living on the same road for
32 years
the architect just became this kind of
coalesce of ideas eventually the
information was a kind of integration of
many different perspectives when an NGO
comes to you and says we want you to
design something spatial for us for a
public installation but we want you to
invoke the kind of creativity and the
feeling of a child within you in the
piece it’s a very very tall in this case
of course part of the problem was solved
by seeing my son work on Legos when he
was about four and a half and he said
let’s just make a big oversized set of
Legos and talk to them in the world and
his car the road so the spatial idea was
taken care of but what about the kind of
emotion of that emotion how do I make
people feel like children well I took to
the streets with my smartphone and they
said they started making films and these
tools are actually embedded within a
solution within the boxes so you have
things like people drawing ideas or
imaginations on your page and Sam –
groups of things flying through the sky
airplanes birds have the perpetual
making of cotton candy and
a child or adult it could be a project
for the coaching zeros big holiday that
we did last year I was very fortunate to
work on two projects this was called
happy media it was a public installation
of course these are all collaborating
and mostly in nature and I love to well
can an architect be a kind of urban
designer and an artist at the same time
yes in this case we basically proposed
an urban infrastructure but very playful
in nature therefore three months to the
other holidays and you actually see
people using this is all me out of the
recycled material that was bought from
the coaching life is really an assembled
on its circumvents and subverts the idea
of what the city is and used in a new
idea pipe so could it also be about an
architect masquerading as an artist in
this case I was working on research on
the idea of home which for me dealt with
the imaginations of people had in terms
of how they learned to live around the
world this basically formed a
three-dimensional construct which ended
up as a kind of physical art piece
called reliance and models of ideas of
how people with good can architectural
drawing or the fine arts be a way of
drawings and multimedia kind of forms of
expression and interpretation which
always helped me in my architectural
practice it’s not just about building
buildings I’m working on recently which
are called extra architectural because
they’re basically looking at kind of
regenerating the idea of looking at
everything to do knowledge and we make
things in the computer and then we build
these things straight from the computer
but what about our hands our senses
other senses trying to bring these
drawings outside into a new life so in
short I think every discipline has an
opportunity to expand itself potential
and for me architecture has been one of
those things where I’ve looked at kind
of new ways of seeing the world around
me and understanding that space the
relationship we have with our
environment is changing in terms of the
present and in the future such a rapid
pace I don’t think we can define
ourselves by one name of one people or
consider doing one thing for the rest of
our lives if anything the projects that
are kind of taking on at this scale and
allowed me to explore new ways of seeing
the world spaces now how many times has
somebody come up to a situation of a
filmmaker a product designer could be an
educator a teacher I’m always a father
I’m always a husband that’s fine but else
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