I've been wanting to do a "blogs I like" post for a while, and now is as good a time as ever, I suppose. It's a bit of a guilty secret, but I rarely read architecture blogs. Not even the big, famous ones. I do follow the architecture, art and design blogs of a few friends, but it's mainly because they're my friends and I like to see what's on their minds.

I recently started following a lot of other blogs, though. It was only about a year ago that I discovered blog aggregators, specifically, Google reader. How embarrassing - I've been using the internet for 14 years (and by the way, I'm 27 now, not 26) and never followed any blogs until last year because I had no idea that you didn't need to obsessively go through bookmarks all the time to get the latest updates. I have been publicly online for a while, but I am basically obtuse when it comes to developments in the use of the internet. Including innovations that have been making other people's lives easier for years.

So, here are some favorite blogs. It's a motley list. And linked to specific favorites. There are other blogs I enjoy greatly but they don't update often so I am just including the ones that update at least every few days or so.

Wheelchair Dancer is probably my favorite blog right now. This is one of the blogs that designers should add to their lists en masse. You'll get some interesting points of view and learn a lot, and the writing is good too. It's really good, insightful personal narrative, always a good story. It's obvious from the name, but the author is a wheelchair user who danced & dances. There have been many times I've read this blog and a thousand little sparkles went off in my head and I felt like I was growing more brains. That's the power of WCD! I will want to use the "tiny sparkles" comment again, so I won't, but it's true of most of the blogs I am going to post here. That's why I read them.

Right to Design is the second of my top two. Bess is a disability historian/theorist/scholar (forgive if I've got the designations wrong!) at University of Delaware and the blog isabout universal design, with great understanding of it from a designer's side of things too.

Taking Up Too Much Space focuses on gender, trans thoughts, feminist theory. Another "must read" for... well, in my opinion, most of humanity. This is an intense blog.

Home of the Vain is my best friend in the whole world's photography blog and it's pretty beautiful. And yes. I consented to that photo.

guerrilla mama medicine definitely blew my mind with this entry specifically on "We don't need another anti-racism 101" and I have grown to really love the interweaving of poetry & politics written here.

Shameless Magazine is brought to us by Canadians! I especially appreciated this entry, which is about another website on ecological and social justice called

black.brown.green. This probably doesn't belong here because it's not really a blog. But whatever. It's one of the rare sites that features a reasonably holistic and explicitly anti-racist stance about ecological issues. I get frustrated with most green blogs so I basically avoid them. I get angry with the green blog network's consistent failure to reiterate that sustainability encompasses social justice and financial sustainability as much as it does the input-output of our collected metabolic processes. Basically I've come to think of "green" as an inherently clueless and privileged take on environmentalism, of "green" as not actually sustainable in any meaningful sense. BUT. This site here is reclaiming the word "green" for me. I know plenty of people use it well but I have gotten disillusioned for a bit. Thanks, black.brown.green.

Big Fat Blog is a blog about fat acceptance. It's holding down a serious fort of awesome in the face of a lot of bigotry right now.

10 Things Zine was a zine that existed when I first started going to shows and getting out of the house. Now it's a blog and it always evokes a warm and happy nostalgia for me!

A real blog update is coming soon soon soon. (Bloggers guilt strikes again.)

I just wanted to say a special

HEY Y'ALL!

To everyone who will be attending the Open House at Yale on Thursday. Please come say hello after Greg Lynn's talk. I'll be taking photos during the lecture, and I have purple hair (ok not all of it) so I'm pretty easy to spot.

Why are there so few women in architecture? According to Yale School of Architecture's Dean, it's because women have families.

Do architects of all genders not face work/life balance conflicts?

Does the hours-to-pay-ratio typical of architecture not pose a problem to architects of all genders?

Do all women want families? Are all women even physically capable of having them? What about parents of all genders who adopt and foster?

Are there really "few" women in architecture? Or does this observation mostly pertain to those architects whom the elite members of the profession mutually consider the "top" of the profession? Will this remain true when those of us who have graduated in more gender-balanced classes have earned the experience to lead major firms?

Is architecture lagging behind other professions in accommodating people with children by providing flex-time, telecommuting, paid parental leave, childcare, and retraining for those re-entering the workforce after having taken time off to parent? Or is the situation comparable across various fields?

(Wouldn't sensible parental leave policies and childcare provisions benefit parents of all genders? Wouldn't sensible healthcare access benefit all people, regardless of parental status?)

...Are women simply bad travelers?

As an educator and employer, what are you doing to address gender disparity in academia and the workplace? What solutions do you propose, and how are you working toward implementing them?

Since my last post with all of the candid photos from lectures at Yale, a few people I’ve photographed have asked, “Will this end up on the blog?” Maybe! I take the photos for the school. It’s my official workstudy job that provides me with lunch money most weeks, and the photos go into the University’s archives. And it’s a good reason to get up and sit in front and get paid to attend lectures I’d attend anyway. I've been doing this, in a way, for twelve years, and you can read all about it here.

I wanted to take a moment to talk about this odd job I have that isn’t architecture, but which is part of my thinking that informs how I try to design, and which I don’t usually discuss around architectural circles. I was a photographer for a couple years – a New York City fashion photographer, and people make certain assumptions about that. People frequently express surprise that, among other things, I’m not a fan of ranking people based upon their clothing choices, or that I support the “Health At Every Size” movement. They apologize for not having applied cosmetics or not having worn something “better.” Do people usually say this when their picture’s taken?

I no longer have a personal domain now that I’m in school and unavailable for hire, but susansurface.com used to be the only google search result for the query “feminist fashion photographer.” I always thought this was weird since it didn’t seem like this should be a unique or novel designation, almost “retro” in its nomenclature. But there I was. Here’s why.

When I lived in Seattle, New York and London, larger cities with fashion and art markets, I occasionally had opportunities to earn supplemental income on the other side of the camera. I was (am) a poor student, so any chance at making a few hundred dollars in a few hours’ work, even if it involved getting a haircut I disliked to advertise a salon, or hawking energy drinks to drunk patrons at a bar… sign me up! The first time I sat for a fashion photographer was in Seattle, and it was awful. From the moment I walked into his studio, he made innumerable condescending, misogynist comments about my appearance. Squishy arms here, pimple there. “You’re shorter than the girls I usually shoot.” (Always “girls,” never “women.”) “I usually shoot Real Models. Why do they send these people to me?” He spent three hours applying makeup to my face, including forty-five minutes blending around one specific pimple, and another hour and a half making my eyes look “Geisha.” Then there was another hour punishing my hair into a bouffant. All for not quite thirty minutes shooting photos of me, most of which was spent adjusting the minutiae of my pose and lighting to make me look thinner. I didn’t feel glamorous at all – instead, I knew that the photographer considered me so heinous that it required one-sixth of an entire day to apply enough corrective pastes to my head to make it worth his while to even pick up the camera. Alongside a former internship that made me deliver 250 lbs of magazines around Chinatown on a 95 degree day, it was probably the worst job experience I’ve ever had.

He made it clear that he’d rather be doing Real Art with Real Models than earning money shooting what would surely end up being “unusable” images because of my weight and my height. But a paycheck is a paycheck you know, it’s what you have to deal with as a commercial artist. “You can keep the negatives if you want. I’ll never need them.” What an insult wrapped in a favor – photographers never relinquish negatives if they can help it. Fifteen minutes before my shoot was supposed to be over, the next model arrived. She was six feet tall, thin, blonde, and he was so glad to see her. They were friends; she was a Real Model. That was it. I left. We didn’t say goodbye to each other.

Even then, I knew that there is no correlation between my actual personal worth and what anyone else thinks of how I look. I knew better than to get depressed about my weight, or let someone in the fashion industry control what I thought of myself (though at the time I wasn’t bold enough to simply walk out of the situation as I would do today, especially not from a paying job.) Yet his words still affected me. I was a teenager, and he was in his thirties with a decade of experience in a profession I was about to go to college to pursue. There was a palpable power imbalance, even though we were both hired by the same publication. Now, nearly ten years later, I went back and looked at those “unusable” images. I looked fine. Despite being embalmed in foundation because he thought my head was irreconcilably wrong, I look good in two frames. I look unhappy and awkward in the rest, but I was not ugly. I looked good enough to be photographed by a professional photographer, for fashion or art or any other purpose. Still do. And so does everyone else, if only the photographers could see it.

It’s as much arrogance as any opinions I have about representation, diversity, and acceptance. I believe that I can create a fine image of anyone in the world, and that photographers who don’t feel this way are, basically, chumps. If everyone you shoot has to be 6’ and 115 pounds of sculpted muscularity for you to feel in control of your art, the problem is your lack of skill and vision, not other people’s bodies. I’ve heard some photographers say things like “I hate people who want “real people” in ads ,why do they want mediocrity? We need extreme proportions for extreme impact.” And I just think that’s sad. (And as if tall, thin people are somehow less real than other people - another conversation altogether!) It’s sad that so many otherwise creative and intelligent people look at individuals whose dimensions fall outside extreme categorical specificity and automatically see only a dead-end. That says more about a photographer’s mediocrity than a subject’s. Are these photographers incapable of producing “usable,” even aspirational, images of more than one body type? Again, that’s sad! Competent artists do better than that.

It’s difficult to articulate the continuum between my approach to photography and my approach to design, since the concerns are so different. I’ve worked in photography longer than I’ve worked in architecture, so I feel more comfortable articulating a stance on the familiar than the unknown. I feel very very strongly about not wanting to control or change people, and therefore don’t feel strongly about being in control of constructing how they look. I do prioritize aesthetics and form, but not in a way that makes me want to police or control others. I can’t see how it is possible to classify whole swaths of humanity as inadequate or in need of concealer and makeovers – a stance that I have observed, for example, in urban planning, in discussions of architectural gentrification as a “regenerator” of low-income neighborhoods. And likewise, it’s an entirely different situation when the motivation to change comes from within. Someone wanting to exercise, diet, gain or lose weight for their own reasons can be healthy and positive, as opposed to someone feeling like they have to do those things to conform to the fashion industry’s standards; a community wanting to redevelop or create new resources in their own neighborhood can be affirming and socially just, as opposed to an outside developer deciding to displace affordable housing with luxury condos because people with more money will “improve” the area. It’s a really tenuous analogy, but I am trying to make sure I won’t condescend to the communities where I someday might build, like that photographer once did to me. And even though it hurt when he identified me as a waste of time, I did learn something about labor under the professionalization of creativity: I learned to make sure that I’m not working on things that waste my time, just for a paycheck, because that resentment would spread out beyond myself. I would love it if people I photograph felt affirmed by the images I’ve made of them. And I want to work in such a way that the people I build for someday also feel supported by what I do.

All this to say - I like people. I like taking photos of people. I like taking your photo, I like the photo of you. Sometimes I like the occasional funny or goofy photo. But I’m not the paparazzi waiting to capture the worst possible photo of you with poppy seeds in your teeth when you’re delivering your paper on Palladio. That moment is no more true to you than when you look your best. Unless proven otherwise, I’ll assume that your worst moment is probably less of a truth. And please, feel free to eat that burger beforehand.

I plan to come back and edit this post a bit later, but for now, here's a bit of a who's who around the school lately.


TOYO ITO LECTURE

Someone from... something... contacted me and asked me to post a blog for this lecture. I don't know if I'm supposed to do so here or elsewhere, but hey. Here it is.



This image is really fun if you go to the school and can play Where's Waldo. In front is Liza Fior from muf. She is teaching an advanced studio and seminar this semester and will be lecturing in a couple of weeks.


When you lecture at Yale, this is what you see... orange carpet, the Dean in the first 3 rows, and CONCRETE. Oh, and the school's giant camera in your face. Sorry, everyone who has ever lectured within the past year, or will lecture in the next year and a half. Just remember, "The more photos I take of you, the more likely there is to be a good one!"


Toyo Ito pondering the slide that is projected above him. He was a really excellent, clear, thorough speaker, even via translation.


In fact he said something so profound that Dean Stern jumped up and started singing "Can I get a RU-DOLPH" and the whole lecture hall got up and started dancing. The lights went out, everyone was wearing diamonds, and the secret disco ball descended from the ceiling. It was rad. Then the lights came back on and...


Peggy Deamer, who is my current studio critic for Urbanism & sitting here next to John Patkau, asked a good question about Ito's model of practice and its relationship to the construction industry in Japan.


Then Peter Eisenman was like, "I love you, man." And then we all went to go get martinis and wine.


Alex Felson, who is my studio's roving environmental & sustainability expert, took his suitcase full of rare books.


Fabrication instructors Kimo Griggs and Susan Farricelli flanking Jessica Vitali, an architecture student at University of Washington.




RUDOLPH SYMPOISUM


Adrian Forty, theorist who delivered the Keynote Address


Hilary Sample of MOS, who just won the PS1 pavilion design competition.


Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Saarinen Expert!


Sunil Bald of Studio SUMO with whom I have drawing class this semester.


Joyce Hsiang teaches first year studio, and Bimal Mendis is an assistant dean.


Sylvia Lavin delivered a really excellent paper on Paul Rudolph's experimentation with "flash in the pan" design materials like lights, mirror & carpet that don't reappear over multiple works.


Sunil again with Ken Tadashi Oshima from University of Washington.


Come to our receptions.... we have martinis.


CLASS


I'm taking a class at the School of Management for my elective this semester. It is co-taught by William Drenttel, who is the one in this photo & publishes Design Observer, and Michael Bierut from Pentagram. I wasn't trying to be creepy. Photographing the chalkboard is more efficient than taking notes - in this case, a list of "stuff that is designed."

This video for "Corporate Cannibal" by Grace Jones is incredible. (Sorry, I don't know how to embed video, or if we can do it at all.)

Here are some notes from Globalization Space:





Here is a bad photo of a conceptual drawing I did:



Here is a photo of me sitting in the weird wall cutout in the library:

I've been reading Bess Williamson's excellent blog, The Right to Design - specifically, the entry on A World Without Stairs. It raised some questions for me regarding universal design and accessibility. These questions are almost ridiculously basic, but as a (future) architect I should know the answers - and don't!

If a building's main programmatic functions are accessible, but has alternate modes of circulation that are not - it doesn't count as universal design... does it? I mean when a building has a primary accessible circulation core with additional non-accessible circulation (main core + 2 fire stairs, for example - basically, our building codes prevent buildings from being truly universal.) I think about this a lot because of the A&A (oops, I mean Paul Rudolph Hall). We have a truly fabulous stairwell with giant landings, some of which feature carpeted benches and obscure sex crannies, and nearly all of which feature either bizarre faux-ancient plaster wall hangings or geodes, seashells, and various odds-and-ends embedded into the concrete.



It's a great stairwell. I like to hang out in it. A lot. It's even been discussed on Archinect! But a wheelchair user wouldn't be able to autonomously make use of it. Of course, the A&A has been around since well before the ADA, and I do think they've done a good job of joining the new art history addition and making most of the necessary-for-school programming accessible. But it's still annoying that some of the most idiosyncratic, character-giving spaces in the building are physically off-limits to some (including the 8th floor former-apartment and roof terrace with the best views of New Haven).

Then there's the apparent building maintenance policy of total disregard for disabled persons. Student ID keycards don't work on the accessible entrance. The "push here for automatic door" button on the outside of the building does not work, even when the building is unlocked - as the 200+ of us who routinely carry armfuls of coffee + books + 30x40" pieces of chipboard know all too well (yet another case of Universal Design that would benefit a Universal community, not just disabled people). For the past 2 days, the accessible entrance has been blocked off, with a sign directing users to "Please enter at top of stairs." I don't understand how they can get away with this. We may not have visibly disabled students/staff, but we do have many elderly faculty, plus a public gallery and a library that all the University is supposed to be able to access, and I've definitely shared the elevator recently with an undergrad with a broken foot.

I started thinking about universal design quite a bit during the design phase of our Building Project last semester. (See also the Architectural Record article and my photo albums.) Although we don't know for sure (no mortgage was sealed when we designed/built the house), the hypothetical buyer is a war veteran who has Multiple Sclerosis and uses a wheelchair. The owner's unit was to be fully accessible. She'll live with her husband and 2 children (who do not have disabilities), and the house has an attached, non-accessible rental unit for income to go toward mortgage payments. Many of us had the logical initial idea of putting the rental on the second story and the owner's unit on the ground floor. However, given the zoning, setback, and lot coverage percentage restrictions, it proved impossible to get all of the required 1600 square feet for the owner's unit on the ground and still have enough space left over for porches (crucial in New Haven!) and the entrance to the tenant unit. There were some whispers early on that we'd either have the budget money for, or an in-kind donation of, a stair-lift, but that did not materialize. And no wonder - after the in-kind donations of materials and labor (no cash donations allowed because of the school's tax situation), the house cost something like $200,000 to build, and was designed and constructed in only five months.

Accordingly, our owner's unit has a second story loft, reached only by a staircase. It's a gorgeous staircase. The old tables from the architecture studios were rescued en route to the dumpster, then refinished by several of my classmates. Two of them also took charge of welding the structure and joining it all together, and the result is tactile, warm, strong. It's one of the most remarkable components in the house. However, it saddens/angers me that the most visually central, beautiful elements of the house is something that the future owner, who will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for this home, cannot use. The loft space is designed to be "visually accessible" from the ground floor, but that is a silly excuse for what is actually the result of the tight budget and the very rapid design/build process. There's an argument that "she can enjoy looking at it," but that's not enough. If I were buying a house, I'd expect to be able to physically access and make use of my entire house and would feel taunted if a fantastic central element of my own home was off-limits to me. It's different when someone inhabits an extant house that can't be renovated to a universal state - and yes, people figure out ways inhabit all kinds of spaces. But if part of the design challenge is accessibility, then the result should be accessible, or else the design fails conceptually. (Perhaps the problem is that we are required to "meet ADA requirements," rather than challenged to produce a work of universal design.) Home is meant to be a refuge, especially within the rest of the world that constantly sends a message to people with disabilities that their needs can always be compromised to cut a corner or two because they matter less than other people's needs.

There is value in using architecture to challenge, question, and propose alternatives to our assumptions about comfort, usability, and domesticity. But I don't believe this particular project was the time and place for that, nor, to my knowledge, did anyone's design idea hinge upon such challenges. Oh, and if we're talking about challenging norms and conventions with design... hello! Making a radical commitment to universal design does challenge norms & assumptions!

That said - the house is far more accessible than most residences in the area. The driveway and entry system are sloped. The kitchen is spacious and the master suite/bathroom are all accessible. The non-accessible parts of the house (loft and basement) are points for future generations of BP designers (and the client) to consider, and to learn from this year's difficulties. If the developer is committed to investing in accessible homes in a location where the zoning and lot sizes make it difficult or impossible to achieve the required square footage on the ground floor, they must commit to allocating enough budget to include a lift or stair lift. However, I don't really know what the exact numbers were, nor every single reason that every design decision was made. I do believe that everyone involved did the best they could given the tight limits of time and budget.

The program could benefit from more education at the very beginning of the project about universal design - not only how-tos, but whys, and the history/theory of the rights of disabled people. Many (If not most) of us have no idea about how to approach UD, nor how to talk about disability. Historical & theoretical concerns are off the radar entirely. For example, I didn't even know that "wheelchair-bound" was considered an insulting term until Bess corrected me, and thank goodness she did, as I had been cluelessly using it all semester! In fact I'm probably using some terms incorrectly in this blog post, and also have no idea. (Feel free to notify if that's the case.) My team had vague ideas about what makes a space accessible (turning radii, hallway and door widths), but had no real ideas about how to achieve this until the final reviews for our projects when guest jurors pointed out some very basic errors that could've been corrected earlier & quite easily during the design process - which would've meant that we could have spent more of the review discussing architectural concepts rather than simply being told "But that corner won't work... and the windows are too low/high."

Finally. Unless your concept is something like "inacessibility" or "abundant proliferation of stairs," UD can work within basically any formal or conceptual framework, and isn't a design-killer. At least no more so than stairs, plumbing, electricity, and all the other services you assume are going to have to get in there somehow. I don't know all about the specifics of ADA - let's assume that there are some well-intentioned but ludicrous, archaic, contextually inappropriate, and/or unhelpful things in it, as with all building codes. A few bungled codes (which presumably one could lobby to change or exempt?) don't negate the importance of respecting all bodies. The next time some jerky architect informs me of their opinion that "ADA is killing architecture," I will exercise my privilege of being physically able to kick that person hard, in a place that will definitely let them experience a couple days of empathy with people who can't walk too easily. ;)

********

So, that's enough of the past. This semester has been utterly hectic, and I've been suffering from Blogger's Guilt: it's been so long since I posted that it's embarrassing to post again.

In the midst of the work-avalanche, Kazys Varnelis' book, Networked Publics is out. I collaborated with Israel Kandarian and Kazys to design the cover. Kazys graciously sent me a copy, and that unexpected package felt like an oasis of "wow, someone actually liked my design enough to publish a few thousand of it" in the middle of a rough school week. Around the same time, the Royal United States Architects (aka me & my partners Jacob, Sean and Choi) were told that our entry is in the White House Redux book and exhibition at Storefront for Art and Architecture. Wow, someone actually liked our design enough to publish a few hundred of it!




If you read this, please vote for our entry in the "popular election." RUSA still have a shot at winning the illustrious $108 in ad revenue!!!

In September, we had a week-long (including weekends) Environmental Workshop with Patrick Bellew of Atelier Ten and Thomas Auer of Transsolar.


Here's a slide they showed during a lecture in Hastings Hall.

We had midterm pinups earlier this week, and are now in the midst of a week-long workshop on Daylighting with MJ Long.
DIVERSION: Before finding the URL for the design practice, upon querying the search engine, I found this:



I Heart MJ, Long-Sleeved T-Shirt.
I am excited to make a model that is so huge I can stick my entire head in it.

I should go do that now - and also finish formulating a rough abstract/bibliography for my paper for Keller Easterling's Globalization Space seminar. I'm proposing to write (roughly) about plumbing infrastructures (or alternatively, the globalization of accessibility in building codes, if my plumbing idea doesn't go over too well.)

I'll update SOON regarding this semester's studio project. Oh, and I've finally met Kyle, the other Yale blogger! We even live in the same building. Cue "It's A Small World."

For my first entry, I'll share a funny story.

Fellow Archinect editor Mason White was on one of my reviews first semester. We were introduced to each other by my critic, Mark Foster Gage, because a safe place to hide luggage was needed - and that place was under my embarrassingly messy desk. But I still don't know if he knew it was "Archinect Susan." This issue might come up from time to time: what happens when casual, friendly online acquaintances become faculty? It's a little awkward! But as long as everyone acknowledges how awkward it is, it's fine, right?

In future entries, you may expect:
*Why I am writing to all of you
*A recapitulation of 1st year
*Tales of the Yale Building Project 2008
*My current schedule
*Hopefully convince some fellow students/classmates to contribute guest blogs.
*Anything else you want to hear or questions that you would like me to answer (please, ask.)

But, for now:



Hello.

I am honored to follow in the wake of such fine predecessors as onepairofpants and SmoketyMcSmokeSmoke, both of whom I am fortunate enough to count as friends. I haven't met Kyle, the other current Yale blogger, but this is a problem that time will soon remedy!

I'd like to highlight this new Archinect feature. It's an interview with Kevin Roche from Perspecta 40: Monster, which glows in the dark.

Finally: YES, IT'S MY REAL NAME.