Life: The Ultimate Design Project

Recent occurrences have me thinking. I'm already gonna tell you to get off my back, because is it some deep things I've been thinking about and it may seem cliche. But that hasn't stopped me from thinking.

There are many metaphors about what life is. A journey waiting to be taken. A book waiting to be written. But as an architect, I think of it in another way. I see life as a design project, beginning at conception.

Every design project starts out with the designer being told the limitations, the rules, the regulations of the project. This is the element of the project in which we have no control. This is the first several years of life. Adult shape our world, set our rules, and raise us until the point in which we can start to take over.

Next step, the rough sketches, the beginning, the failures. This would equate to the period of life during grade school, middle school, and high school. Even college. This is a time of great experimentation. Trial and error. It is also a time when we make terrible mistakes, but use those mistakes to make our lives, our designs, better. As we reach college, we begin to see the big picture. We finally have the resources to develop our design. How we use them is up to us, and the success of the final design depends on this very crucial time.

Next comes the repetition, the polishing. This comes after college. This is when we get a job, any job. Even jobs we hate. But we do whatever it takes to work our way towards who we want to be, what we want our design to look like. The key to this step is to keep pushing, to keep working towards out goal. This is also the time when our mind begins to branch out. We look to others for feedback, we help those who are at a mind-block, otherwise known as a mid-life crisis. We also bring others into this project, becoming the rule makers for a whole new generation of designers. The cycle is never ending.

Finally, we reach the end of the project. This is a misnomer, because no design is ever finished. Time simply runs out. This is the saddest time of the design project that is life. The designer is never able to look back and see everything finished, because they are no longer here. They have moved on. But if they were successful in their goals, achieved their design aspirations, they have left a legacy to be admired by others. Designs are permanent, designers are not. People die, designs do not.

This is a great source of comfort for me. I have had far to many ends to deal with lately, but I can feel at peace knowing that while they're no longer here physically, their legacy will live on. That is what design has done for me this week.

I'm Back...

I'm really bad at blogging... But you know that. I know that all 2 of you who read this didn't hold you breath since the last post, but I will do my best to keep this thing going this semester. My life gets much more interesting during the semester anyway.

A quick update on how my semester looks:

Senior Student Manager = 17 hours of work a week
17 credits in the Bachelor of Design in Architecture (BDA) Program = 11 hours of class per week, increasing to 16.5 hours per week in October
Field Staff Lead for the UofM Marching Band = 8 hours of rehearsal per week plus 10 hour gamedays
Gold Pep Band = playing at every men's basketball game this season

Busy? Yes. Having the time of my life? Yes.

In my spare time, I am trying to make my new apartment a home, along with my roommate. My crowning achievement of the past week was figuring out how to install my cable and internet in one night. It involved a trip to Home Depot, an hour and a half with my dad and I arguing on speaker phone, and my adrenaline pumping when I finally got it at 10:30. I wasn't able to sleep that night, I was too pumped up.

That is all for today. Homework for tomorrow is done, $15 fountain is assembled and trickling away, and my bed is calling to me. This is going to be an interesting semester, and I'm excited to take you along for the ride. Bon voyage.