I am not one of those architects that knows about the wind. I am familiar with the sun, it rises in the east and sets in the west. The sun is easy and regular. It gets tricky, granted, when crossing the equator with the sun all of a sudden rising in the south and the momentary panic of not really understanding if it still rises in the east. The wind on the other hand makes no sense. As far as I can tell it just blows around a lot and any attempt to explain its patterns only results in confusing maps and graphs. If i lick my finger and stick it up in the air it does not whisper any sweet synoptic secrets in my ear, it just gets cold.

Architects who know about the wind tend to achieve a sage-like status. More often than not they reside in Pittwater, they sail and they are wrinkled. Their tools of the trade in wind-craft are: a furrowed brow, sweeping hand gestures and squinting into the distance as if to some cartographer’s cloud just over the horizon. And as proven in the following transcript nobody argues with someone who makes a statement about the wind:

Me: Holy fuck its hot!
Wind Sage: mmm…What we need is a cool nor’easter to blow in.
Me: Yeah…? … does a nor’easter come from the north east or blow towards the north east?
Wind Sage: (squinting out to sea) That’s not important.

As you can probably tell, I am not convinced that the wind is all that. Sure a cool breeze is nice on a hot evening but so is a cold beer and I don’t hear anyone giving anyone heartfelt lectures on the majesty of the Fisher and Paykel AF-P120SS; how its 115 litre capacity is just perfect for storing a case of VB tinnies, how the skin tingles in anticipation as you open the 6 Litre freezer door. As always knowledge is power and by virtue of the fact that not that many people know shit about the wind, the Wind Sages are playing it for all its worth.

Which brings me to the Architects Yacht Race, held last Thursday. Organised by Jeremy and Finghin, Tribe Studios entered a boat of misfits. Given that my only other previous experience with sailing wasThe Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker in which I had little sailing boat that I controlled by changing the direction of the wind using a Magic Conductors Baton, I think I did okay. I pulled ropes and I winched ropes and i squinted up the sails in a sage-like manner. However I was not endowed with any further understanding of the wind which was evidenced by the fact that as soon as I took the wheel we nearly missed a buoy and missed running into a competitor by a whisker.

We sailed very slowly and although we did come in toward the end of the field we did not have pink and green bandanas or run into a tugboat like one team did. At least we understood wind better than those hacks.

Oo la la, Miss November!

Some backstory:

Back in the days at Sydney University Architecture School there was a little student publication called The Surreyville Times, although publication may be a generous description as it was really just a photocopied A3 sheet of paper folded in half. It was run by the older kids on campus, was vaguely serious and had an amusing gossip column at the back. I am not sure when, but sometime between first and third year it disappeared.

One day a couple of years later when we were in final year Matt got it into his head that we ought to resurrect it. Huzzah! A fine Idea, we said, so we did. For two whole issues Matt, Nathan, Jeremy, Hannah and I dished up delicious satire and poked fun at the faculty. We wrote crazee articles, horoscopes, bitched about being students etc. We complained that the library subscribed to useless magazines such as Vogue Living while the faculty could not afford enough design tutors, which resulted in us receiving more tutors and more Wrath of Librarian in equal measures. We were media moguls and the power was intoxicating.

Until some planes ran into some towers and we all lost inspiration. You see, in the first issue we had just about enough content to fill up one A3 sheet but the back of the paper was still blank. We could not be bothered writing anymore and did not really know what to do. So we did what every other publication does when faced with illiterate authors - we filled the blank space with porn.

We would have a centrefold. Architectural porn. First up was The Secreteriat in Chandigahr, reproduced here today for you to enjoy in the comfort of your own darkened bedroom. It proved popular and its timesaving qualities were not lost on the editorial team and so we decided to make the Archi-Porn a regular feature. The second issue of The Surreyville Times that we put together had the World Trade Centre as its centrefold. We printed it and distributed it around the studios and a day {two?} later the World Trade Centre had collapsed and we all felt really awful.

After that there was no more Surreyville and no more Archi-Porn. Until now.

The other day Barbara was kind enough to point me in the direction of this piece of writing titled “If Architects had to Work Like Web Designers”. Below is an extract.

“Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Please don’t bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of the carpet.

However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.” More.

It begins like this and continues on in much the same vein. What strikes me as odd about this is that the aim of the article appears to be to point out how tough the lot of the web designer is. Having to deal with clients that change their mind, have unreasonable demands etc. The thing is though, the imaginary client in this letter sounds like a typical architects client. Nothing really strikes me as being out of the ordinary.

Thus, in the spirit of taking the piss at most every opportunity, below is my cunningly titled rebuttal; “If Web Designers Had To Work Like Architects”.

If Web Designers Had To Work Like Architects

If Web Designers had to work like architects they would have to sell their snow boards.

The Web Designers clients would make unreasonable demands. The Web Designer would strive to juggle these demands with the big questions of web design. In the end however the Quantity Surveyor and the Project Manager play golf together and so what the Web Designer thinks don’t mean shit.

Having arrived at a design that all interested parties are happy with, the Web Designer would have to submit their files to a popularly elected ‘council’. This council would have no education in the graphic arts and their opinion of what constitutes good design would be influenced by two primary sources: the Channel Nine promo and their niece’s wedding invite. These people would have total control over what the web designer is permitted to draw and on many occasions will direct the design decisions of the web designer. Requests made by council will be frequently along the lines of, “I think it should look rusted, you know, to give it a sense of history”. Through protracted negotiations lasting roughly 18 months, the tenacious designer will be able to argue this back to more reasonable “The background will be textured and the general page layout will be based on medieval principles of proportion to give the page a sense of history”. If the Web Designer is unhappy with this outcome they may take the matter to court.

Once the project has been approved by client and the council if Web Designers had to work like architects they would upload their files to the server and three years later the web page would be available to view by the general public. Only it would look different. Because the guy at the web hosting company decided to ‘value manage’ the code without telling no one.

Oh, and if, like, seven years after you have finished the job, someone gets a papercut on a printout of the web page you designed advertising the local thai restaurant, then you will be liable for all damages. Granted, its not four square metres of glass spontaneously exploding, like, thirty-four stories in the air and showering down on an unsuspecting group of school children and their charity working teacher, but boy, them papercuts smart.

Sorry Barbara, I couldn’t resist…

It seems that the reference to Harry Seidler’s bowite wearing was removed from the wikipedia. The entry initially read:

“Seilder’s uncompromising views and singular buildings has meant that his bespectacled eyes and bowtied neck are seldom far from the headlines.”

This was an accurate statement. Nonetheless someone thought it a little too sensationalist for the wikipedia and it was promptly removed. As such a more objective entry has been made:

“He is a founding memeber of the Australian Architecture Association and in 1976 he received the RAIA Gold Medal. In 1984 he became the first Australian to be elected a member of the Acadamie d’Architecture,Paris and in 19787 was honoured by the Companion Order of Australia, an honour which he accepted in his tradmark suit and bowtie.”

Hopefully this will be deemed more suitable.

Gravestmor sends its congratulations to Durback Block for winning the Robin Boyd award for their Spry House. The Robin Boyd award is the National Award for a residential award given out by the RAIA each year and considering that the house was passed up by the state panel, the national award is a deserved victory for the practice.

To celebrate, Gravestmor is pleased to announce its first ever commemorative scent - L’Eau De Neil. Distinguished with a hint of chickory, this refined and fruity fragrance will have suitors and clients alike lining up to take your order. The bottle, in frosted glass, consists of two parts - trumpets if you will - that gesture to the both the body’s wrist and its neck making perfume application in today’s bustling world a breeze.

Enjoy.