in the space between

In the space between I can get lost, I can live.

Space between paper and real, between outdoor and indoor,  between the two faces of a wall, between public and private, between up and down, between mine and yours, between successful or not, between past and present, between conscious and unconscious, between what I am and what I think that I am.

There is always a gap, a space between, between my real and everybody else’s real. There is a gap between what we do and what we wanted to do, it’s not a line, a wall it’s not a line, it has thickness, the space between has thickness,  sometimes so big that you actually live inside and cannot scape. There is gap, it has no point to deny, I want to embrace the gap, the gap makes things interesting. a gap in the professional practice, in the understanding of our job, our life.

Unfolding the space between, discovering it, living in it, enjoying it, feeling confortable in the space between.

The space between cities, between friends, between jobs, between moments, between events, between your eyes and what you look at,  space between thoughts and words, between action and reaction.

I live in the space between

dedicated to a longtime friend.

e.

workspace as it should be.

I am back at Madrid school of Architecture, my favourite place to work these days in Madrid due to a free Wifi network, a lot of work spaces with plugs and so on and with a very cheap cafeteria. Clases are over, and only a few exams missing for the students, but surprisingly the workstations are packed with people. It shows how high is the demand for this type of pleces, friendly spaces where to meet, connect to the internet, study, great access to one of the best architecture libraries I know, …. and a big parking lot for cars,

You can bring your drinks to the place you are working, there is a huge screen showing video-installations or different lectures, you can stay outside on the grass just chilling. If you have something “professional” to do and you don’t have your own office in town there is no better place than this, even if you have you own office it might be worth coming here, the atmosphere is so much lively and open.

I enjoy the feeling because I feel I belong to something other, something bigger, like if all these people would have a goal in common, it feels as if somehow we have some interest in common, I guess architecture in its wide conception.

When I was studying here I never came o the building to work, I always did it at home, no laptops at that time, no wi-fi system, no work spaces, just a few old computer for printing, what a huge change in a few years.

the feeling is like I always imagine my own office, completely free, nice chats everywhere,  a lot of effort but in a nice comprenhensive enviroment, almost as nice as google offices, but without free food.

was this an exercise of live blogging? Not sure what it is, can you blog “not live”?

the shock doctrine

title resembles and is inspired by the book. “The shock doctrine” by Naomi Klein. Interesting and really good book I don’t agree with in full, but yes in some aspects.  

We received shocking news today at the office, I should say they were expected news for some of us, but not for all. Though expected they were equally shocking. Of course we go through  a lot of critical moments through the last couple of months, but this was was specially shocking.

All this intro comes to the point that it is amazing how people generally keep going doing their routine or their everyday tasks when they receive shocking news. It is like if they were not to admit what they have just herad or seeing. Keep going as if nothing had happened, not assuming what is clear in front of the eyes.

Naomi’s thesis on the book is that when shock strikes people get disorientated and that is the moment to push through ideas or policies that in a stable enviroment would never be accepted. And I totally agree woth that and I think it is true.

But another effect of shocking events is that people don’t stop to think about what has happened, about the implications, about the actions requitered, they keep going as if nothing happened. unable to accept the facts. That lack of ability to step back and analyse the shocking events and implications in many cases makes us loose a precious time to put together the neccesary measures or run out of a dangerous place or change directiosns .

Yesterday and today we received enough news and emails to know that the project we are working on was changing to something completely different and to something we will no longer have any implications with, which means we are not any longer on the project.

However, after these news, guys on the team kept going as if nothing had occured, including director, asking for more models that went nowhere, doing diagrams that nobody ever is going to see.

Keep with the routine gives you security, it is your comfort zone, it feels like a known place where you know how to react. Maybe is the first state of five you go through in a grief proccess. I think people are too much into a routine of not thinking just doing without stopping for a second to think what we are doing, in an eternal numbness, inmersed in a doctrinised society.

Anyhow, we were shocked. people kept working as if nothing, we didn’t react, probably I am in phase 5, acceptance. Probably everything is more dramatic because everybody is afraid of losing a job they don’t like, probably we neede clearer ideas… but that is too much to ask.

 totally unrelated

I activated my twitter account. You can check here,-tamospaya- I love the mini posts.

goverment believes buildings are like dishwashers

So, there is a new law in Spain that classifies the buildings in terms of their energy efficiency performance.  Surprisingly enough the law is the same one that one applies to washing machines and refrigerators, and the classification is the same, rating from A to F, A being the best one possible.

The funny thing is that the law used to rate electrical appliances to show which one is more sustainable showing a ratio that describes the energy used to produce energy. So for example the amount of watts you need to maintain the fridge of X capacity at 4 C, and things like that.  The basic beauty of that rule is that is simple, it is not affected by any third parties and does not depend on the location or the time of the day.

How much electricity you consume to spin 1Kg of clothes at 1100 rpm. that’s it. Then you rank the appliances from A to F. Fine.

But now, they are doing the same with buildings, and I am sorry, but WTF.
How do they wanna do that, is it about how many bulbs you use? Does it take in account the human factor of throwing a party in it, or leaving the window open?

Basically what the law is intended is to have a measure of the heats gains and losses through windows and building envelopes including the location of the building. In other terms, how effective the cladding or the envelope is, but it is stupid to compare that to an electrical appliance. And not only that but it is really naive to consider a building an abstract object when the building is a live entity that is subject to climate, different uses, and above all human factor. Does having a more efficient building envelope assures me  I am more energy efficient? or more sustainable? Does all these sustainable measures that normally lead to the use of highly expensive glass (which is really energy consuming to fabricate) are really sustainable?

whatever, next time I will do a building I will design a dishwasher, and both would be rated F, of course.

everything you KNOW is WRONG

What if everything I / You / we know is wrong. Why do we take for granted so many things? why we have to stop Saturdays and Sundays if we are not religious countries any more?  Why if Dubai wants to be the centre of the western world do they stop on Fridays, and only put Mosques on their urban plans? why are they truly trying to achieve with the new islands? why should we reproduce an urban model that was obsolete and a failure since Le Corbusier presented Plan Voisin?

Why don’t we challenge everything that they tell us to believe.

CHALLENGE EVERYTHING. BECAUSE EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG.

It’s no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest.
It’s no secret ambition bites the nails of success.
Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief;
All kill their inspiration and sing about the grief.

95% of my ToDo list for today

Today i managed to do 95% of the issues listed on my “ToDo” list for monday (ToDo list is really funny for me ’cause in spanish todo=all), which is quite a lot. I have a huge list of things  from now till Friday. It gets busy.  But overall I got a question around my head the whole day, actually two.

 
1. Why everybody think that there is nothing to do on the submission or presentation day? Experience has not taught us that are plenty of things to do?

2. Why everybody dissapear and then get surprised when you tell them that you hanged around waiting because at some point there is going to be a call asking for some last minute stuff and that there has to be someone to get that call? Experience has not taugh us nothing??

“hasta los huevos”

Hoy es de esos dias que me he levantado cabreado con el mundo. De hecho ya me acoste asi anoche, (solo un breve intervalo de felicidad inocua mientras veia en la television Padre de Familia)

Digamos para empezar que cabrearse suele ser una perdidad de tiempo, pero seamos sinceros, no sirve para nada pero sienta cojonudamente aunque solo sea por desahogo. Pero si cabrearse es una perdida de tiempo, cabrearse con el mundo es una estupidez aun mayor. El mundo es como es, y ademas desaiado grande tanto para ser objetivo de un cabreo como para serlo de una batalla. Sin embargo aqui estoy yo cabreado con el mundo como digo.

Las razones, digamos que son sencillas de resumir. Simplemente el hecho de estar en un sitio y realizar unas acciones por motivaciones totalmente diferentes al del resto de gente que realiza esas acciones o estan en esos mismos lugares es lo que conduce mi cabreo de hoy y mi desesperacion momentanea de vez en cuando. Tomar en serio lo que otros toman a broma y sobre todo tomar a broma lo que otros creen son actos de vida o muerte. Perspectiva frente a falta de ella, ocupacion vs. desesperacion. Y todo se acaba resumiendo en dos simples elementos. el primero es el significado de las palabras y los conceptos, el segundo el entendimiento de lo que es la vida.

Por desgracia para algunos la unica manera de percibir, presenciar, aprender o conocer ciertas habilidades, costumbres, herramientas, proyectos o innovaciones es incrustarse en un mundo que no es el suyo, y que en ocasiones, como esta, desprecian.

Yo desprecio.

- El egoismo
- La lucha fraticida
- El no asumir errores
- El tener que ser mejor que el vecino
- El considerar al vecino mi enemigo.
- Las prisas sin cabeza
- Actuar sin pensar previamente
- Los entrometidos
- La perversion de las palabras de manera tacita y oculta
- El perder cosas por hacer otras en las que no creo 
- La adoracion del dinero.
- La perversion de los conceptos trueque, mercado, esfuerzo, responsabilidad
- La idea de que el exito profesional se mide por el puesto que aparece en tu tarjeta de visita
- Que el exito personal se mida por la cantidad de dinero que tengas
- Que todavia prevalezca la idea de que el que gana mas dinero es el mejor en su trabajo

Tengo claros motivos para estar donde estoy, pero la necesidad no es uno de ellos. Estoy por tres motivos. 1. Porque quiero. 2. Por mi responsabilidad con la sociedad en mejorar la vida de los otros. 3. Porque me divierto.   Pero tambien tengo muy claro que en el momento en que no pueda ejercer ese divertimento, ni esa aportacion, no seguire ni un momento mas aqui, sino que me ire alla donde la vida todavia es sencilla y los significados estan claros.

books.

books over my table.

The social contract.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Shrinking cities. Volume 1. international Research
Kulturstiftung des Bundes. (German Federal Cultural foundation). Philipp Oswalt. 

The Social Logic of Space.
Bill Hillier. Julienne Hanson

Comunity design and the culture of Cites. The wcrossroad and the wall.
Eduardo E. Lozano

books on the to buy llist.

Delirious New York.
Rem Koolhass. (I know, no excuse, no excuse)

Black Swam.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb

With/without.
Shimon Basar.

dubai. to write something. auto questionaire

we know life is not like movies, but most of the times isn’t also like in dreams. but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t or it shouldn’t be, it just means people are shortsided, so you just shut up, do your stuff and get ready to beat their ass. Not because it is always been done this way is right, not because everybody does it you do it, not because you think different you are a fool. 

next DEAD line 14th July. Marseillaise day, maybe nothing, maybe the time for another revolution. Can revolution be quiet, probably not, there is no revolution if there is no blood. sort to say.

do I believe in what we do. well…

 in building a new city. YES. in making cities denser. YES. in doing cities the way we are doing it. NO. in the way the office is happy with an old-fashion 18th century thinking architecture. NO. moving the people to the dessert. YES. i like the idea of living a life absolutely separeted from weather or sunlight. in building over the water. MAYBE INTERESTING. in building them the way we are doing it. NO. in building islands with funny shapes that someone though when he was drinking champagne.NO in making cities forgetting real people needs.NO. in building cities thinking in 2d. NO. in building cities just thinking on the image of some flashy skyscrapers and not in space. NO. in changing the world.YES. In changing it the way we are doing. NO, because we are not changing it, just repeating the same mistakes. are this all the  questions. NO.do tou mind them reading this. NO

 why do you stick there? to be able to surpass someone, first you have to learn and know what they do, so you can beat them easier

YES  4.   NO   9.  MAYBE 1.

all this things are keeping me busy around 60 hours a week, and make me mentally really tired. it is demanding, ungrateful and tiring, but somehow you balance and if you are not that shortsided and you think in a few years time, you may find it is worth doing it for a few months.  this is my opinion tonigh, 21st of June 2008. Let’s see how long it takes me to change my mind.

tomorrow we are back to the funny posts. well, tomorrow I am heading cambridge for a day trip. Hopefully to do nothing but lying on the grass and watch a soccer game.

 

still alive

It is been more than one week since last time I posted something in the blog. There is no excuse for that, and there is no post coherent to write when you come back. A lot of things happened, funny ones, boring ones, interesting ones, quite a mix.

But probably and overall two main topics to cover. One is about what drives my life right now, and the second one to what extent I have the right to decide which things to show and tell and which ones not.

All this comes from a conversation with a friend of mine I had on Monday or Tuesday (I know yesterday is old, so Monday don’t even think about)

The topic is basically what do we consider is a private life? and even more if we still have a private life. I personally stand that we no longer have private life, and I assume I have no private life and everything I do is subject to be know by someone at some point. This doesn’t mean I am telling everything to everybody because I think my life is not interesting to the rest of the world, so they don’t care, but if someone asks, I have no problem in answering. This makes my life easier because I am what I am, you like it or not.

He stands that private issues make you interesting and that you must have the right to choose who knows what about your life.  

All this really comes to a interesting point when you write a blog. I think that this auto regulated filter in which some people ask about your life and you answer with no problem has evolve to the point in which you write your life, public and private one in a blog and then those who are interested read it and follow it, even make comments, those who are not interested just don’t read it.

Then two questions arise, but come down basically to one. Who has given you the power to decide which issues and things are written down and published and which aren’t? Shall I decide what part of my life to write down and what part to hide, shall I publish everything?, and how do I control it?, even more when I assume I have no more private life so everything should be on the blog. Because this is a blog about my life, my thoughts what happens around me, but to certain point it is censored I decided what to write and what not to write.  Normally the criteria one follows is basically writing down what you think people may be interested in, but you are not to decide what people is interested in, they should decide themselves.

This looks like an author internal problem about showing his life, but it gets even more complicated when your life involves some other people life. Do I have the write to publish a private conversation between myself and a friend, that may not affect my life, but it may affect his. I am making public announcement of his life, feelings, and relationships and so on. It is my conversation, but also his and it is me, not him, making the decision to make it public.

Anyhow, this was not the reason I didn’t post for a week, it is just a nice idea to think about in the next few months.

The reason not to post for a while is Dubai and that my life kinda sucks these days.

Hace más de una semana desde que escribí mí ultimo post en el blog. No hay excusa que valga, pero tampoco hay ningún post coherente con el que volver. Muchas cosas han pasado, divertidas, aburridas, interesantes… un poco de todo.

 

Probablemente halla dos cosas sobre las que escribir. Una es sobre lo que rige mi vida ahora mismo y toma decisiones por mi (Dubai), la segunda es hasta que punto tengo el derecho de decidir que cosas contar y enseñar en el blog y cuales no.

 

Todo esto viene por una conversación que tuve el Lunes o el martes (lo se, si el ayer es historia, el lunes mejor ni pensarlo) con un amigo mío.

 

El tema era básicamente que consideramos vida privada y aun más, si todavía podemos considerar que la vida privada existe. Mi opinión personal es que la vida privada ya no existe, y asumiendo eso, todo lo que hago es susceptible de ser publico en un momento dado.  Esto no quiere decir que vaya contándole todo a todo el mundo porque no creo que mi vida sea interesante para los demás, pero si alguien pregunta no tengo problema alguno en contestarle. Esto hace mi vida mas fácil porque soy lo que soy, guste o no.  

 

Mi amigo opina que tus asuntos privados te hacen interesante y tu debes tener el derecho a elegir quien sabe que sobre tu vida.

 

Todo esto llega a un punto muy interesante en el momento en el que escribes un blog. Creo que esta idea de filtro auto regulado por el cual algunas personas preguntan sobre tu vida y tu respondes sin problema ha evolucionado al punto en el que tu directamente escribes tu vida, publica y privada, en un blog y aquellos que estén interesados (los que te preguntarían) que lo lean, lo sigan incluso hagan comentarios, y aquellos que no estén interesados simplemente no lo leerán.

Aquí aparecen dos cuestiones, que convergen en una. Quien te ha dado a tu el poder de decisión sobre que asuntos y cosas escribir y publicar y cuales no. Debería decidir yo que parte de mi vida escribir y que parte ocultar, debería hacer publico todo. Como controlarlo? Aun más si asumimos que ya no existe la vida privada y todo podría ser susceptible de estar en el blog, porque este es un blog sobre mi vida, mis pensamientos y lo que pasa a mi alrededor. Sin embargo esta censurado hasta cierto punto porque yo decido lo que escribo y lo que no. Normalmente el criterio de selección es lo que yo pienso que va a interesar mas a la gente, pero yo no soy quien decide lo que le interesa a la gente, eso lo deberían decidir ellos.

 

Esto, que puede parecer un problema interno del autor sobre como mostrar su vida, se complica aun más cuando tu vida involucra la vida de otras personas. Tengo el derecho a publicar mis conversaciones privadas con un amigo, conversaciones que puede que no afecten a mi vida pero si a la suya? Estoy anunciando públicamente su vida, emociones, relaciones, etc.. Es mi conversación, pero también la suya y soy yo el que esta tomando la decisión de hacerla publica, no el.

 

Sea como sea, este no es el motivo por el que llevo tiempo sin escribir, solo una idea sobre la que pensar  a lo largo de los próximos meses.

 

La razón de no escribir un post durante este tiempo es Dubai y que mi vida es un poco mierda estos días.