12-Step App for Architecture

3 Dec

12-Step App for Architecture

Welcome to our weekly meeting for those suffering from an architecture addiction. It’s taken a while for us to come to terms with our addictions. But we are here today, publicly standing facing the group requesting one another’s perception, asking for patience as we work through this, requesting assistance.

I see a new face in the trunk tonight. Welcome, buddy. Maybe you have the exact same addiction? No? It’s OK, you can admit it here. This is a safe place. Step up to the podium and present yourself.

“Hello. My name is Jody, and I have an architecture addiction.”

“Hello, Jody,” the area chimes in.

Jody, as it is your very first day in AA [Architecture Anonymous], why don’t we review the 12 steps of the recovery program?

Jody Brown Architecture, pllc

How many tattered copies of Dwell magazine have you got? How many house and garden magazines are on your own coffee table at this time? How many pages have been tagged with Post-It notes? Perhaps you have bookmarked .com? Can you DVR Curb Appeal?

You did, did not you?

Jody Brown Architecture, pllc

You can not do it independently. You’ve tried and failed, admit it. You need professional assistance — angst-ridden, self-aggrandizing assistance, granted, but if you’re drowning in a sea of style addiction, you’ll catch at anything hand reaches you — which, if I’m honest, is the way many architects stay in operation. It’s the ideal business model.

Jody Brown Architecture, pllc

I understand you’ve had dreams of yourself in a much better place. You can almost see it, right? However, you can not get there by yourself. You need to forego this impossible illusion of “doing it yourself” and trust your architect. Your architect is there to help, as long as you have faith — and a generous design budget.

Jody Brown Architecture, pllc

You have to be honest with yourself, brutally honest. You’ve allowed your design obsession to shoot over, and you’ve lost contact with the important things in life. And as you’ve been diverted, your life is now littered with meaningless material possessions: the impulse purchases from Design Within Reach, the irresponsible design-influenced shopping sprees in Ikea, the artfully organized family photographs on the Charles Eames breeding sideboard.

Evidently, all of your furniture will need to go.

Jody Brown Architecture, pllc

I have a Pottery Barn couch. I’m not proud of it.

Jody Brown Architecture, pllc

You need to be willing to start over, to remove all the things that remind you of your past failures. Yes that rocking chair your mother gave you as a wedding gift. Do you really need a material object to remind you of your passion for your mother?

Let it move.

Jody Brown Architecture, pllc

There’s so much to tell the architect. I can not wait to brainstorm some ideas. We might have stainless steel walls, and glass floors, and a stone terrace out the back, looking over the reflecting pond. That would be amazing. There might be hardwood floors throughout … no, wait, bamboo floors … no, no, travertine marble, yes, and a solid maple plank in the center of the living room, just resting there, slightly off-center with the fireplace, daring you to know this, and the shower could be suspended over the stairs, on axis with a expansive window opening around a majestic view into my own soul …

Sorry, I got carried away. It’s a disease. I’m working on it.

Jody Brown Architecture, pllc

MomDadFrank Lloyd Wright

Jody Brown Architecture, pllc

I’m sorry, Mom and Dad.

And Frank Lloyd Wright, I guess. (That jerk.)

Jody Brown Architecture, pllc

What? You were going to say something?

I just thought it would make my life better. I told myself, only a bit more concrete, only a bit more, I will handle it. Anyway, it is only this 1 time. Then, the next thing you know, I’m in the Kimball Art Museum, spread-eagled contrary to the cast-in-place concrete wall, caressing it, before the guards catch me and drag my naked self out to the road.

We’ve all been there.

Jody Brown Architecture, pllc

Just take a deep breath. It symmetry.

Jody Brown Architecture, pllc

All right, I believe that’s enough to cover tonight. Thank you for coming, everybody! See you next week. And remember, recovery is a gradual procedure. Take it one day at a time, and you’ll get there. Until then, just fake it til you make it.

There’s coffee and doughnuts in the trunk. Oh, and Jody still wants a sponsor if anyone’s interested.

Everybody?

More by Coffee With an Architect:
A Primer on the Language of Style
Find Your Inner Minimalist
Flash Cards to Architectural Conditions
Find Your Architectural Design
Good Architecture Speaks to Us

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