simonjames

Yes, We live in the North, but not so far north we should be experiencing such a winterish Spring. A child’s new red bike sits in the hall. My fixie remains in the basement, flat tires and all. Roderick still rides inside on the trainer, as he has been doing for the past five months – watching squirrels gain weight and lose it all over again. I think he is becoming their Squirrel King.

It’s getting old. Inspiration is low. Frustrations are high. There is planting to be done. A porch to inhabit. A city to be explored – on foot, on wheels, in the sunshine. Time is slow right now. Projects have ended – a house remodel, a daycare. New ones are barely creeping in – a theatre, a yoga studio. Teaching is wrapping up for the semester as well. Taxes are done. At slow times, my minds wanders. When my mind wanders I feel ineffective and irritable.

It is now I realize how much I feed on design thinking. I depend on it to be a gossamer film spinning together the divergent fractions of my life. If it is slow or stagnet, then I read less. I think less. I consume less of everyone’s and my own intellect. I miss connections. I fumble opportunities. Design thinking is not just thinking about design. It is not looking at ArchDaily for a dose of architectural stimuli. It is an approach to the everyday. A gracious, thoughtful and thought-filled living. It is being observant and of making critical connections. It is focusing, problem-solving, articulating and managing a mindfulness.  It is doing, acting and creating upon that mindfulness.  But…. slowness consumes me. It is as if this final freezing rain and snow has shown me that the molecules of my mind are moving slowly – slowly, as if a solid. Fuildity and gossamer connections lost. Frozen has won. For now.

We will thaw. We will play tennis and ride bikes and eventually wear sunglasses again. I will think again. Design will permeate as it always can. It is a valiant foe to the frozen north. It exists in snow, sleet, rain, sun, and wind. If we allow it. I think I just let the squirrels run off with it as they did with our sidewalk chalk.

(images: a new red bike; daycare project and and theatre remodel in collaboration with Dimitri Papatheodorou Architect)

The city continues to be a book-worthy topic; growth, transportation, socio-political narratives, immigration, energy – an ever expanding list of potential insights on the future prospects of urban experience. I still read such books as they arrive; but what continues to strike me is the sheer scale of enterprise that cities embody, and the complexity they engender – much like the devices and gadgets that populate our daily routines, the city as an entity is well beyond the comprehension of any one person. How we interact with the form and substance of a city informs, guides and instantiates what we come to understand and know of a city.  I’ve recently been reminded of the propensity for development to seek further uniformity in the name of progress (the casino discourse in Toronto Council).

The very word city often serves to unify and coalesce what is otherwise a heterogeneous form and experience. These are fairly innocuous observations, but I see a omnipresent danger in characterizing, branding, simplifying the complexity of cities under unifying narratives and homogenous development.

A recent trip back to a photographic site of investigation took me to Finch station, and the infrastructure cut to the north and east that makes room for massive electrical lines. As a representative form, as an index, the towers serve to underline the scale and pull of the city – the electrical towers literally transport energy into the city as announced by their palpable hum. Two residential neighbourhoods, a school and other services back-up onto this somewhat vestigial space. The space itself, pictured above, is left largely as fallow and is cut back crudely in the summer months to allow service-workers paths into and around the electrical towers.

Spaces such as these reveal as much as any more metropolitan one we may conjure in response to the word ‘city’. Vestigial space lacks a coherent narrative of use, habitation or history, as all of these aspects of space are in constant re-negotiation by local users who walk, play and even garden in the unscripted bounds of such expanses.

I continue to be drawn back to this site for its ability to reveal what is at stake when we have no script, and what is lost when a script is provided for us.

We rented a crazy pimped-out Chrysler 300 to go on a road trip recently. For a more than 10-hour long drive, this was an excellent ride. Our minimalist, eco-centric leanings hardly fit-in with the car’s over-the-top styling. Crystal white exterior, huge wheels and a black leather cabin. The seats had white contrast stitching and there was a sun-roof over the entire top of the car.  The sound system was Beats by Dr. Dre. We only tested its full capacity once when we did not have a small child in the back seat.

So why would we enjoy such a car? Is it the sheer novelty of absurdness? Is it the presumed luxury and size that sucked us in and made our eyes turn saucer-round? Is it the fond memories of a 1976 Monte Carlo that could rage down a country road at breakneck speeds? The greater question may be, are we suppressing an inherent desire for power, luxury and speed by keeping a close noose on our zippy Zipcar life?

I like to think it all goes back to an appreciation for something that is designed. A designed object that goes beyond an aesthetic and strives for a higher standard of quality.  We can live within contradiction if we perceive quality as integral. I love the look of the Fiat 500 and have driven a Mini Cooper with much joy. A Prius is sneaky quiet and my sister’s hybrid Toyota Camry allows a woman who drives across state lines on a daily basis a bit of relief in the guilt of fuel consumption. Yet, the Chrysler could drive. You felt it. It felt good. Rebellious. The size and weight worked for its intentions, and as a designed object, I wholly appreciated the sentiment. It worked for a long road trip. I would not want it as an everyday car.

The cars you see in the photo above were headed North into Michigan and I am presuming back into Ontario, as they all had Ontario plates. I took the photo for the color and stylistic range. The drivers of these cars seemed happy. They epitomized the joy of driving.  The cars themselves made me happy. I appreciate their history and that they are still able to be shared and witnessed.

I am okay with appreciating a huge, luxury American car, and smiling at the speed it fed to me upon contact with the accelerator, just as I am okay with occasionally staying in a beach bungalow in the Maldives.  We are here to experience the contradictions in life, for only once we live through them and witness our lingering thoughts of joy, guilt, pleasure, saddness, or anger can we really understand how we want to live within the Earth.

Cyan sky. Shimmery sand.

This site has been dormant, but the minds and bodies at simonjames have been active. Sure, there have been days at the beach, but these experiences feed into design thoughts. A curve of the surf, light splashing on sand, forms teetering on an edge.

She is six. Teeth are loose and bike riding rules the roost. She writes stories and draws tables in perspective. simonjames is set for the future.

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