From the perspective of a residential remodel architect, this is my mantra for 2009: to be a creator of pragmatic pleasure. My clients are mainly people who can afford to do what they want to do, banking crisis be damned. If they are to continue to invest in improving their homes, it has to be a project that they see will seriously affect their own enjoyment of their home, while also increasing its (wildly unpredictable) real estate value. My task will be to give them projects that will do both, and reassure them that the pleasure of loving their home space is worth the expense and angst of building. While it is likely there will be plenty of hungry contractors out there in 2009, my job will also be to make sure that my clients aren't being lured into a false bargain with the lowest bidder. Quality craftsmanship is always a good investment, and this will be even more true as the easy money disappears.

In a more general sense, my hope for 2009 is that people are going to be looking for, and enjoying, simpler solutions to problems. My friend architect Tim Gray made a comment in an email this year that has resonated with me: that to solve problems of sustainability and access in architecture we need to be "dumb, but in very smart ways": vernacular methods of dealing with weather issues, for example, and construction techniques that are appropriate to the scale of the project. While I believe that cross-discipline collaboration and innovative thinking will be critical in the future, the best solutions to come from this type of exploration will need to contain a core of simplicity. To borrow from Robert Proctor's three principles of scientific inquiry, problem solving should be rooted in a combination of critique, sympathy, and wonder. I hope for these three ideals to be active in equal parts for all of us in 2009.