Ordinary

For a long time now, I've been fascinated with ordinary things. I'm not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I grew up in a relatively ordinary place surrounded by ordinary things. We didn't have a whole lot of money when I was a kid, so I entertained myself by seeing the potential in ordinary things and then transforming them (with my imagination) into something of much more significance for me.

My dad owned a retail shoe store, until Wal-Mart came to town. I loved it when a new shipment of shoes came in, because then I got full run of the cardboard boxes that were left over. Many times, the boxes were large enough for me to fit inside. We also had three colors of Marks-A-Lot magic markers, red, blue and black. Dad would let me use those markers, a pair of scissors and whatever tape I could find to transform those cardboard boxes into cars with working doors, steering wheels and dashboard lights, airplanes with wings and rudders, and so on. I even remember making a soda machine one time, that I would sit inside and dispense soda to anyone who was willing to slide a quarter through the slot I had cut in the top of the box.

My interest in the potential in ordinary things has filtered into our architectural practice. I still think it is fueled by where we live, the clients we have the pleasure of working with and an all too common limitation of financial resources for our projects. But I think those parameters force us to think about innovation through reinterpretation of the ordinary.

As part of the 2007-2008 lecture series at Drury University's Hammons School of Architecture, I will be presenting some of the work of Dake Wells Architecture over the first three years of our practice. The lecture is entitled "Ordinary", it's schedueld for this Friday, November 16 at 1:00 p.m., and I hope you can make it.