For the last week and a half I have been on a Social Media fast.  If you’ve visited my Facebook page at all in the last week you would have been greeted with a page without the Facebook wall, no status updates, only a handful of profile pictures and very basic information.  I deleted all of my pictures and notes from the last 6 years I’ve been using Facebook and I just stopped short of deleting my profile entirely.  If you went to my Foursquare account you wouldn’t have seen any check-ins.  If you follow me on Twitter you would have noticed an absence of tweets or retweets.  Why did I leave and why am I coming back?

As many know I have a weekly internet program that I do called theStudio.  Every once and a while we’ve done an episode that has changed the way I look at the world.  In fact, my controversial post on the requisite death of the architecture profession came about in part as a result of the show.

Last Wednesday we recorded episode #69 of theStudio with Lindsay Masten Lopez where the conversation evolved into a discussion about the influence of the internet and particularly social media on the design professions.  We realized that we, this generation embarking on the uncharted territory of social media, have found an outlet where we are addicted to the immediate validation by our peers for even the most mundane and trivial things in our lives.

The inverse of this is that we feel compelled to “like” the photos, posts, and status updates that our friends share with us.  I find myself wanting to “like” things on blogs and random websites instead of taking the time to write a meaningful comment.  I want the world to know that I approve.  Does they need to know that?  Probably not.

I recently ended a long term relationship and wasn’t looking forward to having everyone comment on my change in relationship status.  So, I “erased” myself, at least temporarily and decided it was a perfect time for this experiment.

A day after my social media fast experiment started I randomly had a kiwi in my truck.  After filling my gas tank I was greeted by the overwhelming smell of kiwi in my cab and realized that I really liked the smell of kiwi fruit.  I had the sudden urge to tweet “I never realized how much I liked the smell of kiwi.”  Why in the world would I want to tell the world about this?  Does anyone care?  What did I want or expect?

I think I wanted people to confirm there own love for the smell of kiwi and provide me with some validation and connection with the world of kiwi lovers.

Is this insanity?  Probably.  As of 2010 over the 100 million people use social networking sites, so at least I’m in good company.

During my media fast I realized that I’ve been addicted to the feedback from my peers.  As my friend Tiffany said on her blog “If I want attention, I often just ask for it.”  I crave attention, you crave it, we all do.  We all seek connections and validation and the social media explosion has allowed us to get that at the click of a mouse.  In the case of recent tragic events on Facebook we’ve also seen the devastating effects of immediate negative feedback.

So what does this mean?  I’m returning to social media as of today, but in my return I’m going to work to change the way I use it.  Instead of obsessively tweeting and sharing every mundane thought and checking in on Foursquare at every opportunity I’m going to make a more concerted effort to share for a purpose.

Does that mean I’m going to not share my love for the smell of kiwi with the world?

Of course not.

I’ve never lived alone. I’ve always had a family, roommate, or missionary companion.  As such I’ve also enjoyed certain perks and luxuries. For example:  silverware, dishes, and company on Sunday mornings.  During the years I was married my ex and I accumulated all the essentials. We had every kitchen gadget imaginable and our refrigerator and pantry were well stocked.   When we divorced I wanted to simplify my life and so I let her have everything.  I took my clothes, a towel, our spare bed, my keyboard, guitar, and all my electronics.  My thinking at the time was that I wanted everything I owned to fit in my truck.

For the first time in my thirty years on this planet I’m living on my own and can finally relate with some of the odd things my friend Peter has done for years.

The following are my top ten bachelor tips and tricks.

1. Get all your dishes for free from prepackaged microwave foods.  Buy the food,  wash, and re-use.  UPDATE: I thought this was a great idea in February but this really only works temporarily.  I did it for a couple months but if you ever plan on having company over you really need to at least by some cheap dishes at Target.  I found Goodwill had a big selection but their prices were higher than the big box stores.
2. The utensils in packaged food are too weak to be reused.  Spend two bucks and buy a set of eight heavy duty plastic spoons, forks, and knives.  Wash and reuse!  They even come in a variety of nice colors. UPDATE: Again, this is a temporary solution unless you never plan to eat ice cream.  Solid ice cream eventually decimates even the best plastic wear.  Metal is the way to go in for more than a couple months use.
3. Don’t pay for cable TV.  Hulu.com, Netflix, and Amazon.com video can give you hundreds of hours of time wasting entertainment.  If you really need to watch live sports just invite yourself over to a friend’s house, you might even get a free meal out if it.
4. Stoves and ovens are a waste of space. I’ve simplified my diet to the point where my refrigerator has only orange juice, mustard and salsa. Just get ketchup for free from In-N-Out.  My freezer contains a wide assortment of microwave foods from Trader Joe’s and Safeway.  TJ’s even has microwave rice which is amazing.  New packaging even lets you get nice flacky pie crust and crisp pizza crust direct form the microwave!   UPDATE: If you really must bake a toaster over is a great compromise.  The larger models that fit an entire pizza are a must!
5. Spend a couple extra bucks on a good multi-vitamin. Chances are your diet isn’t very balanced.  Don’t risk getting sick, give your body the nutrients it needs.
6. Get a hobby.  Learn to play an instrument or sport.  Get involved in a church or club.  Besides keeping you out of trouble you’ll make some friends and build a support network.
7. Reach out. If you’ve been divorced or getting old like me there is probably a good chance that all your friends are married.  They are too busy with their lives to think about you so give them a call and maintain your friendship, maybe even invite yourself over or invite them to go out and do something.  I’ve only done this a few times and it’s worked 66% of the time.
8. Don’t be afraid to do things alone.  When I was in college I had tons of single friends that I could always call on to go grab a burger or see a movie.  After spending years in marital isolation I don’t have that any more.  Why deprive yourself of decent food or the latest movie? Take a book and go hang out at Taco Bell, I say it’s okay… well maybe not Taco Bell, but you get the idea.
9. Don’t work all the time.  Being single you may work long hours because your social life doesn’t start until after 7PM anyway.  Resist the urge and make up excuses to leave work at a reasonable time.
10. Get a girlfriend who lives in the same state as you. I did the long distance relationship thing for almost a year and it was a lot of fun, but having a long distance relationship spanning multiple states is not something for the faint of heart.  UPDATE: If you are going to attempt it be prepared with a good internet connection for many hours of video chats and make sure you sign up for a frequent flier account. www.hipmunk.com is also a great way to plan your rendezvous.

Major win for preserving our constitutional freedoms!

“In a 42-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson said the law’s requirement that most Americans carry insurance or pay a penalty ‘exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power.’”

Currently the US has the highest corporate tax rate (39.21%) in the world surpassed only by Japan (39.54%).  The US rate was at 49.8% in 1986 slightly below Japan’s rate of 50% in place from 1990-1998.

1. 39.54% -Japan
2. 39.21% - United States
3. 34.43% - France
4. 33.99% - Belgium
5. 30.18% – Germany
6. 30.00% – Mexico
7. 30.00% - Australia
8. 30.00% - Spain
9. 30.00% - New Zeland
10. 29.52% – Canada

Should your child go to college?  Maybe, maybe not.  Was your education worth it for your current job?

Venezia 2004, via Wikipedia

My phone begins to ring, I lean over to see who’s calling, it’s my business partner calling from New York.  It must be two o’clock in the morning for her.  I hop out of bed, grab my phone and laptop and walk out onto the terrace overlooking the canals of Venice in Northern Italy.

Her excited voice comes over the line, “I can’t sleep, I have a great idea on how to improve the natural lighting scheme in the lobby and atrium!”

From my laptop I remotely connect to her computer and I watch as she goes over the design with me.  We conference in our third partner in California and by 9am local time the design solution has been agreed upon.  We forward our markups to the production team in India and by the end of the day we all receive an email saying the design renderings and animations are ready for final review.

For the last eight weeks the three of us have been able to dedicate all of our time to this design competition, it has been the highlight of our careers.  For the last two months I have been living in Italy, enjoying the weather and gaining inspiration from the works of Carlo Scarpa scattered throughout the city.

If we win the competition we will be busy for the next two years in the production and construction of this building.  If we don’t win we’re going to all move to Ecuador for the next year and volunteer our time with Architecture for Humanity.

This is the future of architecture. The framework for a distributed global project team isn’t new.  Technologies like remote desktop software and high speed internet connections allow project teams to work anywhere in the world.

What may be new to some is the idea that the Architect doesn’t need a mountain of paying clients to support themselves.  How can my project team devote two months to work only on a design competition and then turn around and expect to continue to work for free for the next year?  Did we just finish a string of highly profitable projects that have padded our bank accounts?  Maybe, but we didn’t need the work.  Did we win the lottery?  No.

Photo modified by Alex Ceballos, source unknown

It’s six o’clock in the evening on a Friday night.  You’ve been working ten hour days all week, your clients are bombarding you with emails wanting to know the status of their projects.  You are personally managing six major jobs and even with all this work it still seems like at the end of every month your firm is barely meeting it’s financial needs.  You make a reasonable income but it’s impossible for you to take time off to travel or spend time with your family.  Work is one crisis followed by another, one deadline resulting in three more.

Due to a downturn in the economy you know that if you don’t find more work soon you will need to start laying off employees that you have worked with for years.  You know you could do better work and have more developed designs but you must cut the time you personally spend on each project to market your services and follow up with potential clients.

At the end of the day you turn off the lights and lock the doors.  You are the last one in the office again.  You walk downstairs to your car and put the key in the lock.  You think to yourself, what happened to the joy I used to feel in my work.  Is this all architecture is?  Is this all my life is worth?

This is the status quo in architecture.  The movies portray Architects as carefree, glamorous, wealthy and successful individuals.  The truth is that the architecture profession today is for the most part comprised of stressed, overworked, frustrated individuals who live from paycheck to paycheck hoping that someday they will be able to take control of their lives and have the time to do the things they really want to.  Out of financial necessity we take on too many projects and stretch ourselves too thin … and for what?  At what point and at what cost are we deemed ”successful and accomplished”?  Have you asked yourself lately what are you working towards, what are you working for?

The status quo no longer works. The economic meltdown that we are struggling to pull ourselves out of has reinforced this fact.  The idea of working for forty or fifty years and hoping to have enough saved to “retire” is no longer a viable option.  At any rate, why do we volunteer to literally work ourselves to death throughout the best years of our lives?

The idea of Architects as artists is ancient.  Wealthy patrons would hire resident architects and support them in their art.  It is time for Architects to become their own patrons. Architecture  may be our reason for living but it doesn’t have to be our livelihood.

Photo by Jayjay402

It is time for the architecture profession as it is today to die. It’s already dieing, it’s just a question of whether we will be like the Phoenix and rise from the ashes stronger and more noble.  Freed from the financial shackles Architects can reach their true potential of being agents for change and contribute to the improvement of the built environment in ways previously unimagined.

I, for one, am choosing a different path.  I choose to only do projects I want to do and to not do projects just for the sake of keeping busy.  I choose to not compromise on quality because I must take on more projects just to keep the lights on.  I choose to start living NOW and not wait until some future date.  I choose to be creative and not settle for the worn out solutions of the past.  I choose to take the training that I have received as an Architect and use it for the benefit of all people, not just those that can afford to pay me.

If you would like to join me you are welcome, but I am only taking the volunteers.

I’ll see you in Venice in two years,

Tim Alatorre, AIA, LEED AP

– U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don’t Even Know It: Laurence Kotlikoff – Bloomberg

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