Keane Moraes

How it felt to me : that is getting closer to the truth about a note book. I sometimes delude myself about why I keep a notebook, imagine that some thrifty virtue derives from preserving everything observed. See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going... See more

Making what you like explicit is a powerful tool. It will help you articulate it to yourself and to other people. This will help you refine and make more of it.

If you’re disappointed by the mundane nature of this process, so was I. When I arrived at the office, I was half-expecting a bunch of artsy weirdos bedazzled with tattoos and attitude. Instead, I met a group of plainly dressed nice folks, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who worked hard at their craft but tried to keep the real world in sight. When I... See more

Except, in the process of regurgitation, writing does more than just reproduce experiences—it amplifies them. When we write, we apply our own seasoning, enhancing their flavor profiles and textures through the lens of whatever mood or mindset we are in the second time around.

So the point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking. That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct for reality which I sometimes envy but do not possess.

Problems are typically richer than our preconceived notions about how to solve them. We can learn this the hard way, by failing and then failing again but failing better. But there are often shortcuts to be found if you are willing to spend more time mapping the landscape.

Architecture is not an economic commodity that can be corrected by market forces, nor an engineering problem that can be honed towards an optimal solution. Architecture is a spiritual ethic, one that both shapes and is shaped by the ambient zeitgeist of the society it stands in.