Three Great Architectural Father's Day Gifts

No dreaded tie for me! Three architecturally-related Father's Day gifts made this the best one ever: The Sims 3, a book on Frank Lloyd Wright, and a 2008 Kia Rondo. But what do these have to do with architecture? Trust me, my friends, and read on:


Okay, so the book was probably pretty easy to guess as to how it was architecturally related. If there is a single architect in the world who hasn't heard of Frank Lloyd Wright, it would be like finding a Physicist that never heard of Einstein. "Frank Lloyd Wright", by Spencer Hart, reads in landscape, like many of its kind.


The book is divided into a short biography of Wright, followed by an extensive series of plates that feature photos from many of his greatest works, as well as some of the actual plans, sketches, briefs, and so forth.

Wright's sketches are perhaps the greatest treasure to be found in this book. The notes along the sides, the details put into each and every inch of the place, the immaculate penmanship--each is a glimpse inside the mind of the man who revolutionized the entire industry.


Also are several panoramic shots that spread across both pages, giving an expanded view of the environment surrounding the structures that Wright designed. It becomes increasingly obvious with these photos that Wright not only understood the environment surrounding his works, but loved it, and wanted to frame it, as much as it would frame his works. Neither ever appears to work against the other. A perfect tandem like this should be the goal of any architect. This book makes a fantastic addition to any collector's library. (You can buy it here).

So what does the Kia Rondo have to do with architecture?

Well, as it turns out, my little Echo that I've been driving and loving for the last 8 years needs a new transmission, and rather than spend the thousands to get it replaced, the wife and I decided it was time to bite the bullet and get a new car. The problem is that I needed something that will last me for years and years, get acceptable gas mileage, has good passenger capacity, and can carry large architectural models around in an enclosed environment with easy loading and unloading. It also needed to be capable of long road trips and movement around construction sites, camp sites, etc. This pretty much left me with choosing from SUVs, station wagons, covered wagon pickups, and vans. None of which typically get very good mileage (usually less than 20mpg here in the USA). Then my wife pointed out the Kia Rondo. It gets acceptable mileage (23+ avg), seats up to 7, and has an enormous back cargo area capable.

I mean look at the insane amount of space in this thing. You could fit a model of an entire neighborhood in here plus the presentation materials and still have room for the donuts. And that's BEFORE you fold down the second row seats! With the second-row seats folded down you could go ahead and throw in all your folding tables and folding chairs, and several Vanna White clones to smile and point at your model as you describe the parti. After reading the review from Edmunds and seeing their only cons to the vehicle were "lack of pizzazz," and "questionable resale value," I knew this vehicle was probably perfect. I am not rich enough to need or care about pizzazz, and since this will probably be the car my 2 year old son will be one day driving, I don't particularly care about resale value either. All I had to do was test-drive it to make sure. We found a 2008 for $12,000 at CarMax, I drove it, and that was that. And I mention CarMax because of how incredibly painless the experience was. No haggle. No hassle. No pressure. It was the most pleasant Car Buying experience ever, so I don't mind giving them a nod.

Anyway, that's what the Rondo has to do with Architecture. It's basically a great, inexpensive student car for those who plan on having to haul large delicate models to school and back, and also plan on using the car for the first few years of your career. So what about The Sims 3? What does that have to do with Architecture?

Old-school gamers may realize that the Sim-Franchise did not start with The Sims, it was merely popularized by it. The original game that started it all was Sim City which is now up to Sim City 4 (I don't count Societies). As the name implies, it is a computer simulation game where you plan out a city, and the tiny simulated inhabitants immigrate, emigrate, get and lose jobs, commit crimes, deal with problems like earthquakes, fires, flood plains, etc. It is--believe it or not--actually used by many civil engineers and city managers to help test modern city infrastructure solutions before designing the infrastructure to address them. It's even used by contestants to design a city for the annual IEEE Future Cities Competition. It's also quite a bit of fun.

The Sims, likewise, is a family simulator, that places focuses on one family at a time while they are still in the context of a larger city. By now, at The Sims 3, that environment of city context, people, houses, views, and local community is quite well developed, and houses have become incredibly intricate and varied in their possibilities. So it stands to reason that by now, at Sims 3, one can put certain architectural solutions in place. Though in the first Sims, houses were little more than boxes you could stick furniture in and let your inhabitants walk around, the shape, form, and function of the houses are more important and diverse than ever, and the possibilities are near endless. You can quite literally create a house from the ground up, landscape around it, have incredible arrays of gardens, and what they've done with lighting is incredible. You can actually watch how the shadow of a tree plays across the house through day and night as the sun passes overhead. Rotating around the house gives a view of the entire neighborhood and landscape around it, and with the exchange and creation tools already provided, one can create nearly any texture or look to a house one desires.

Of course the entire point and prefix of architecture is the division of space. How traffic flows into, through, around, and out of the house is of paramount importance in real life, and even more so in Sims 3. You can quite fully recreate just about any house you wish to in here, provided you have the necessary textures and walls. Some of the more extraordinary features might be difficult to pull off. I'm not entirely certain if "Falling Water" could be recreated in Sims 3, but considering the quality and success of this franchise, I don't believe it will take long.

Now, that said, obviously you couldn't build a house purely based off of Sims 3 any more than you could build a city purely based off of Sim City 4. But if you wanted to test a concept, and get a quick view of how something might look, how a family might interact within it, how it fits within the surrounding environment, and how the parti for a house might work, Sims 3 makes a useful (and fun) tool to do so with. Before you dig out the materials manuals, the math books, and fire up the CAD and plotter, try out Sims 3 to test drive your house idea. You might be surprised how well art imitates life.

To Be or Not To Be...a Genius in One's Own Field

I can't help but compare Wright to Einstein. Both were once-a-generation geniuses. Both physically and ideological reshaped the world. And both had terribly disastrous personal lives. Now I have to ask myself if I even remotely had the same Spark within me, would I really want to achieve this magnitude of genius in my chosen field?

Smithsonian Magazine's June 2009 issue ran an article about Frank Lloyd Wright and his personal life. I'd never thought to look into the man himself, only his architecture. After reading the article, the comparison to Einstein seems even more poignant. Einstein too had severe marital and parental problems that were a source of scandal and infamy. And as a devoted and loyal husband and father, I cannot help but find my opinion of both men to be diminished as a result.

This is not to say I consider myself better than either man, or any man for that matter. Rather, I do not understand how Wright could have, in his own words "hated the sound of the word papa," or how Einstein could have been so cruelly unfaithful to the wife he once declared “a creature who is my equal and who is strong and independent as I am.”


Everything I do, I do for the love of my wife and child. Certainly the field of Architecture itself is my choice. But the drive to not only excel, but to be the best in my class, and eventually the pinnacle of my profession, is derived from the presence of my wife and child. I want to provide them the best life I can give them, and cannot possibly fathom sacrificing my relationship with either of them for the sake of my career. Family should not be an impediment to one's success, but a pillar of it.


I look at Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings in a new light now. Before, I saw them with the same sort of reverence and awe that one might view any work that so eloquently combines science and art. Now that he is no longer deified in my mind, I look at Falling Water, wonder if I could do better, and no longer think myself arrogant for wondering. These were not gods. These were not avatars of divine purity and perfection. They were flawed, mortal, and deeply conflicted individuals who managed to achieve great things in spite of, not because of, their inner-torments.


How much more than they could I achieve with the love and support of my family? To what greater heights could I soar? What depth of impact could my words, actions, and designs have upon the world when I approach them from a happier point of view? Anyone reading now might scoff, and perhaps even rightly so, for one to suggest they could ever reach the level of Einstein or Wright, but I say why else even enter a field? Should we hobble ourselves and claim we could never achieve even what those who came before us did, then humanity would never progressed. There would never be a Guinness Book of World Records, nor an attempt to break them. It is in our nature to meet and exceed the accomplishments of those who came before. It is in my nature to try my best.

I just have to hope that, should I be blessed, gifted, hardworking, or whatever "enough" it takes to achieve the heights of the giants, that I don't let it change who I am. Was it fame that destroyed the family life for Wright? Was it success that lured Einstein away from his wife? What is it that causes a "Genius" in one's field to completely and totally lose touch with where they came from? Was there something wrong there to begin with? Did the character flaws exist before their elevated status, or because of it? The only thing that makes me fear one day being the best is how utterly it has destroyed those who have been there before. Currently, I am a nobody, but if I ever become a somebody...or as they like to call them now, a Starchitect, I sincerely hope that I never end up like this guy...

I Dream of Architecture

Sometimes I wonder if it took anyone else 33 years to figure out what he really wanted to do with his life. I can't even begin to count the number of things I wanted to be "when I grow up." The thing is, at some point I grew up and forgot to actually pursue the career I wanted to. Not that I'm complaining, nor do I have any right to. I've got a beautiful loving wife, a happy healthy baby boy, a good home, and a great relationship with my extended family. I've even got a great mother-in-law. However, as far as careers go, mine has been a bit of a let-down.

Again, I've no reason to complain. I don't have a college degree, and yet I work a job where I can sit inside, in the air-conditioning, and earn a fair wage capable of supporting my family, with a fair amount of job security and adequate benefits. Every time I think I've had enough, I think about all the people who have no job at all, much less one so cushy compared to some of the things I've had to do for a living in the past. But I don't know too many people currently in the tech support field who thought they'd be doing this for the rest of their lives.

My first attempt at college was laughable. Though I did fairly good in high school, I was nothing spectacular. Though I tested out of a number of classes at the University of Texas at Austin, I was a young, stupid teen who didn't appreciate the opportunity he was given. I just ended up making a fool of myself and causing a lot of people to be disappointed in me after my eventual withdrawal. For the next 14 years, I did whatever I had to do to get by. Often it was tech support, but there were many times where I was showing up at "Labor Ready" before the crack of dawn in hopes that I'd get the chance to dig a ditch. The worst job I ever had was carrying bubbling hot buckets of pitch up to rooftops during a 120 degree summer. I am reminded of that summer whenever I find myself making the mistake of thinking I'm too good for a job. Nevertheless, I still want to do something more with my professional life.

Two years ago I was given that chance. My parents, perhaps pitying their newly married son who was saddled with a mortgage, a newborn baby boy, and a mountain of debt, took pity on me, and paid down what debts were necessary to send me back to college. Without their assistance, I'd still be saving up for the one day I'd go back. Some people might be ashamed to admit that in their 30's, their parents had to help them pay for college. I'm not. At this point in my life, I'm simply eternally grateful, and every class I attend is pursued with the passionate determination that I will prove their decision was a wise one.

I have no illusions about there being the prospect of a third chance. This is it, and it's no longer just myself who is dependent on the results. I have a wife and child who will forever live with the consequences of my evening classes, projects, and tests. Further, I am no longer a young man with nothing but time to spare. I may not be old, but the knowledge that taking only part-time classes until I graduate will place me at 40 before I even beginning my real career is daunting at best. I'll be just starting out at the same position and level of experience of people literally half my age, and with a bedtime several hours earlier. It's a scary prospect, but one in which the rewards are worth more than the fear of what will be expected of me.

But why Architecture?

I'm not sure that it wasn't always there in the back of my mind, somewhere. My entire life I've had dreams themed around my being trapped in a never-ending building. One room would simply lead to another room, or another hallway. Even windows merely opened up into yet another building. The entire world had been somehow compartmentalized. As a child, I also played a considerable amount of role-playing games, and when running the game, my favorite part was drawing the floor plans of buildings, castles, and so forth. I've still got some floating around somewhere. Perhaps I'll scan them in some day and put them in the blog. I've always admired the Crystalline Architecture of some of the more notable buildings in Houston and Dallas, while at the same time having a fond attraction to unique looking buildings everywhere I go. My father got me interested in art from a very young age, and helped me to appreciate aesthetics early on. But none of these things ever resulted in me waking up one day and saying "I want to be an architect!"

What really started me off on the path was my first semester of my return to college. I was taking U.S. History through Reconstruction and Professor Jerome Barnes of Tarrant County College did such a fantastic job of teaching it that I became enamored with the subject. I knew what I wanted to be: A History Professor. I've always loved history, and here was a career I could really, truly enjoy. I found strength and vigor to pursue college even more fervently than before. I would be the greatest history professor known to mankind! I would--soon find out that it is very hard to be employed as a history professor, even with a Doctorate. The pay would never be outstanding, and I would constantly have to move just to chase a job that might only last a couple of semesters. My students would almost never appreciate the subject, and certainly never with the same enthusiasm I had for it. I realized this would never be a way I could support my family, at least not in the manner to which they were accustomed. I gave up my dream and decided I'd simply fall back on Engineering, the same field I'd chosen my first round at college.

I wasn't sure what sort of Engineer I wanted to be. There were certainly a lot of choices available. With global warming, concerns about sustainable practices, and pollution, and the new Green movement that was sweeping the nation, I decided I wanted to be a part of the solution. One way that sounded very interesting was a new program offered by the University of North Texas in Denton, called "Mechanical and Energy Engineering" or something like that. So I began working towards that, with the assumption that I would work with "Green Energy" and help make great strides in it. But the more I looked into it, the less it seemed like something I really wanted to do, and the math of energy fields was frankly terrifying. Maybe I would pursue mechanical engineering instead and develop the most energy-efficient automobile? Until I found that most engineers only work on one part of a car, which I'm certain is necessary for a variety of reasons, but when I design something, I wanted to be the one to design the entirety. It was a selfish reason, I know, but if I'm going to put so much work into a field, why not be a little selfish in what I choose to go for?

Along the way, class after class I scored a 4.0, and was invited by Phi Theta Kappa (the honor society for 2-year colleges) to join their ranks. In the application process I had to put a check beside my major which was as-yet undeclared. There were only a few options for Engineering, and one of them was Civil Engineering. This is when the idea first crystallized. I wanted to design buildings. Green buildings. Efficient buildings. Beautiful buildings. I understood buildings. I could relate to them. I'd spent most of my dream life trapped inside of them. Civil Engineers made buildings, right? I checked the box, and told my father about my choice a week or so later. His response was to assure me he thought I'd be great at designing roads and bridges.

Roads and Bridges? I didn't want to design those. I wanted to design buildings. Perhaps instead of Civil Engineering I needed to choose Structural Engineering? Wrong again. Architectural Engineering? I was certain it must be Architectural Engineering. And I was certainly wrong, again. It turns out that Architectural Engineers do not design the wall. They decide how many bricks the wall will require, and of what type of material the bricks will be made, or what gauge of wire will be used, or what width of plumbing, etc.

After a considerable amount of discussion with my father, we determined that what I wanted to be was, in fact, an Architect. In retrospect it seems this choice would have been obvious: I love designing floor plans, I love history, I have a desire to engineer solutions to problems, and of course, I dream of architecture.

Now with a clear goal in mind, I have been able to read more about the subject. The more I read and see, the more fascinated I am. I realize I have chosen a field of work that lets me combine everything that I love, including my family, and put it towards a use that can help others and even make a good living off of it. It's a field that combines art and science and allows the best among them to become a unique and respected member of both circles. Was Frank Lloyd Wright a brilliant artist or a brilliant engineer? Do most people argue the point, or do they instead simply marvel at the buildings that are a testament to his genius?

This first entry begins an effort on my part to chronicle the path that got me here, the path I'm still traveling, and the paths I will have to choose between in the future. As my knowledge and understanding of architecture grows, my attitude and beliefs will likely change on various subjects. I might forget many of the naive questions and ideas I have today, and worse yet, I might one day forget the struggles I had along the way. Perhaps even if I one day become the next great architect, this blog will keep me humble, and will remind me to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground, even as my imagination attempts to reach the clouds.