Proposal

An Excerpt from Local Wonders by Ted Kooser:

“Recently, I was asked to submit a poem about a favorite picture for a book planned by the Harry Abrams Company, and I chose this painting.  It seems to have a simple premise:  old buildings that in daylight would be so familiar that a person living in Russell’s Corners wouldn’t even notice them become exotic and mysterious in the light from a commonplace bulb.  Ault made four paintings of this same midnight crossroads, each from a slightly different angle, some showing a third building.  But their effect upon me is identical.  I push back the darkness, darkness that has already begun to affect and alter the familiar, making it strange and exciting.  I wrote:

If you can awaken

inside the familiar

and discover it new

you need never

leave home

Local Wonders.”

THE BUILDING OF A SHED:

EMPIRICALLY EVALUATING MY FUTURE AS AN ARCHITECT

Three months from earning my undergraduate degree in the field of architecture I withdrew from all classes and from Ball State University.  Three and a half years have passed since that day and I am finally closer now to finishing my degree than I was on that day.  As so many wise people have instructed me, scolded me, encouraged me or otherwise told me, finishing my studies and having a degree is essential in this day in age.  A little older and a little wiser, I don’t disagree – albeit a reluctant affirmation.

One month from now and I will have logged my requisite six months as an intern at an architecture office (in this case, Lake | Flato in San Antonio, TX).  Expanding my architectural education from a studio to an office hasn’t done much to promote my desire to become an architect. My disillusionment with architects still lies prominent, while my intrigue for architecture longs to be sated more than ever.

When asked if architecture is my future, I have exasperatedly and honestly replied, “I don’t know,” and then usually continue with, “What I really need to do is design and build something – no bigger than a shed,” and I think that will be the litmus test for my future as an architect or designer.  I need to move from 1/8” = 1’-0” to 1” = 1” which is the only world I am concerned about.  It is a world that was utterly neglected in my studies as an architecture student.

…

Standing between a Bachelor of Science and me is this Honors Thesis – and, for as long as I’ve put it off, I anxiously await the conclusion.  An opportunity lies before me that I believe will confront the very disillusionment and idealism that led me to abandon my studies in 2006.

Last autumn, alongside my Dad and a family friend, I helped assemble a Sears backyard shed that came as a kit of parts waiting to be formed into floors, walls and a roof.  This particular kit of parts must have sat in our garage for two years, but the pieces went up willingly enough once we started, as it was only daylong project.  Having followed the directions and making sure the end result looked as the diagrams indicated, we assumed we now had a shed to last; but, Kalamazoo – where my parents reside – is accustomed to regular snowfall in the winter months.  The Sears shed must not have been designed for such regular snowfall, because within three months of assembling the shed, nature disassembled it, the roof collapsing under the weight of the snow.  My opportunity had arrived…

To design and build a shed for my parents in Kalamazoo, MI to many, I imagine, hardly seems worth a thesis – the word shed indicates the most basic of built structures – four walls, a floor and a roof.  After all, to build one requires but a quick drive to Sears, no more than a handful tools found in every American garage, and a free afternoon to follow explicit step-by-step directions, in English or even in Spanish.  To be clear, what I don’t mean by shed is something quick and easy, something reduced to four walls, a floor and a roof; something conventional; something plain, something similar and certainly not a kit from the local mega-hardware store.  No, they had their chance.

Convention is something I will redefine specifically for this project.  Terminology will emerge from functionality – wall may not be the most appropriate term – but rather a phrase that speaks to the function of that vertical surface.  Using words that indicate the reason behind the piece (wind blocker, rain catcher, snow barrier, etc…) will help make every design decision for this shed more deliberate than otherwise.  Because of the small scale of this project, and because of my inexperience, I feel I should attempt to “reinvent the wheel” and I think it serves all parties best if I do attempt to, even if I arrive right back at the original, proverbial wheel.

…

With this shed, I will be redefining my parent’s view of their backyard.  It will lie tucked away in the back corner by the vegetable garden – not drawing any particular attention to itself, except that it is new and that my parent’s initially won’t help but always feel its weight in their peripheral vision, as a man who sits on his porch swing at his country home looking ahead, but noticing the one, lone car driving down the country lane a mile off to his right until it passes and is out of sight once again.  Soon, my parents will no longer sense this shed as an new and foreign object in their backyard, but will come to expect to see it, and not long after that, it will be part of the home, happily aging alongside my childhood swing-set, needing the annual maintenance that all things built need.  It will be my Dad’s project after it is mine, for it is his home, and it will be his shed.

Though this project requires the implementation of a new thing imposed on my parent’s established home, the goal is to create something out of what already exists – not physically, but contextually.  In order for a shed to exist, it must be built, it won’t be discovered new to reference Kooser.  However, I imagine new things discovered for my parents because of the building of this shed – I imagine both of them now spending a quiet summer evening on the swinging bench from a position just beside the shed, viewing the backyard from an angle never before used.  I’m imagining this shed to be fully included and contributing to my parents’ idea of home (not to mention, serving the function of the home) as much as any unnoticed, but significant piece that already exists.

…

To design and to build a shed is to take on a task quite foreign and very challenging; it is altogether new for me, save some experience designing in a hypothetical, theoretical, miniature-scaled world.  It makes most sense to begin in a place that I have experienced so abundantly in both conscious and subconscious ways.  A backyard that I know the nooks and crannies of, a backyard where I skinned my knees, grass stained my pants, lost my baseballs and altogether grew up.  My home is already a local wonder – I believe the carefulness and considerate intent I will put into the design of this shed will really lead me to remember and even discover new what home is.

Alongside this discovery is another – designing and building this shed will, I believe, either validate my suppositions about the contemporary practice of architecture as an over-laborious, over-complex, over-legislated, over-glorified process that needn’t be as it is, or will lead me to acquiesce my rose-colored glasses and walk away from the field.

…

The significance of this shed lies not in its size or function, but right now, in this stage of conception with its latent potential; but potential as distinct from my architecture projects in school, for this is potential that will have to be realized, as this is a real project.  The potential I have to test myself, to test my idealism, my creativity, my utilitarianism, my resourcefulness, my abilities to communicate an idea, my ability to satisfy a client, to minimize a buildings impact on the earth, to reduce waste, and to create something beautiful all lie encapsulated within this imagined, future shed.

By the end of the Fall Semester of 2009, I will submit a book constituted of the sketches and technical drawings of the shed.  Documentation of the existing shed, schedules and timelines of the process of creating the shed, writings both during the design and construction of as well as reflections on the built work, that justify or explain why I’ve done what I’ve done – both in technical and pragmatic terms as well in more subtle and insightful descriptions.

It is only perhaps upon completion of that final book, when I’ve really reflected on the process of designing the shed from conception to realization that I will be able to determine if I am venturing into the right field, or if I am concluding a visit to someone else’s.