#122: “LET’S ARCHITECT IT!”

August 14, 2020

Kanye West at Graduate School of Design, Harvard University (photo by Virgil Abloh, West’s style advisor, @virgilabloh, edited by Anthony Poon)

Startling the 2013 architecture students at Harvard University, musician Kanye West showed up and riffed on Oprah Winfrey, “utopia,” and “self-realization.” Young ears perked up when Mr. West proclaimed, “. . . everything needs to actually be architected.”

List of Verbs (from eslgrammar.org/list-of-verbs)

Traditionally, the word “architect” is not used as a verb. But “Let’s architect this” has become both commonplace and trite in commercial jargon. Similarly, “architect” as a noun has been appropriated and misused outside the venue of state licensure, such as in technology and the “software architect” or in government and the “architect of economic reform.” (Back to musicians, Dr. Dre does not have a doctorate in medicine, and Queen Latifah is not of royal lineage.)

Regardless, if we want to “architect” our projects, goals, and total existence, let’s have some fun and view the letters of A-R-C-H-I-T-E-C-T-U-R-E as acts of engagement.

Studies for the American University in Cairo (Anthony Poon with HHPA, Sasaki Associates and Abdel-Halim CDC)

ASSESS
Analyze your site. Study your sit(e)-uation. Evaluate your circumstances.

REACT
Respond and take a position. “Compare and contrast,” as your high school English teacher requested.

Material studies at Poon Design (photo by Anthony Poon)

CURATE
Craft your options. Edit, edit and edit—and form a hierarchy of ideas.

HONE
Sharpen your attitude. Refine your judgments.

(photo by Mabel Amber, who will one day from Pixabay)

IMAGINE
John Lennon stated, “Imagine all the people living life in peace . . . Imagine all the people sharing all the world.”

TEST
It’s about trials and tribulations, examination and analysis, and successes and failures.

ENDEAVOR
Take big risks and reach as high as you can.

Colored glass shelf on anodized aluminum bracket system set in ledge-cut limestone at the Beverly Hills Visitor Center, by Poon Design (photo by Poon Design)

CRAFT
Remember the human hand and the artistically created, instead of the machine-made and mass-produced.

TAILOR
Style, shape, and personalize into bespoken results

Conference room brainstorming at Poon Design (photo by Anthony Poon)

UNIFY
Put it altogether—fuse and coalesce.

Buddhist Temple, Natural Bridge, Virginia, by Poon Design (photo by Anthony Poon)

RUMINATE
Let it all season. Let the wine age. Have patina and flavor.

EMBRACE
Relish the outcome, and be prepared to start again.