This past weekend, I participated in a four-day charrette with nine other designers from my firm.  It was a two-part design solution, in which the ten of us developed a master plan for a low-income neighborhood in Dallas named Bonton.  Then, we broke into smaller groups and developed three new housing prototypes for the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate.  We [...]

It seems that as we mature, we often forget to ask one of the most important questions: “Why not?” – the essential question of innovation.  This is a question innate in children, a question which we ask less and less often, as the realities of life take hold. We review the work of our peers and competitors with a critical [...]

I was working with some of my co-workers on an architecture competition for a pop music center in Taipei, Taiwan.  Unfortunately, there were only six of us on the team, and we were working on the competition in our free time, which we soon discovered wasn’t nearly enough to develop a solid, coherent scheme for a $100M project.  We didn’t [...]

    A.R.M. is a design solution to Arctic Perspective Initiative’s (API) recent design competition for a mobile media-centric habitation and work unit to be deployed throughout the circumpolar region.  I participated in the competition with three of my friends, and this is our submisison. We designed A.R.M. as two pieces – a module for living and working, and a [...]

For thousands of years, man has practiced the art of tree and plant shaping.  There are many methods for actively influencing a tree’s growth, such as bonsai, topiary, espalier, pleaching, and grafting.  Some of these methods may be used together to grow a living structure. Bonsai Bonsai is the art of the miniature landscape.  The cultivation of plants in containers [...]