PERSPECTIVES

     In the book Isaac's Storm, the author Erik Larsen does a fantastic job of describing the hurricane that hit Galveston TX by covering every angle of the history. He uses multiple stories and statistics to give his work credible and factual information. In my architecture classes we are to taught to view an environment from every angle and design for what ever that environment needs. Ways I find different "perspectives" in architecture are things as simple as a small sketch on a bar napkin or a snap shot from your camera phone. If I decide to have a more detailed overview of the senario the use of software on a computer to generate 3-D images of the "situation" is a solution.
     There are really two different aspects when you start a project, very similar to the factual and narrative aspects of Isaac's Storm's set-up. There is a artistic and technical side to the perspectives of a project. Some architects discover a artistic style that transforms more into a technical as their studies increase. For example, If you were told to design a small foot bridge over a moat in a densely public area one might sit on a nearby bench and watercolor what he sees in front of him. As he does this he either goes ahead and paints in a "prototype" bridge that would accent the scene that is occurring in front of him. The more techy people stray away from engaging in the actual environment and run there precise preliminaries off quick snap shots off their phone. There is really no better way to go about this. The architects that take the artsy path may have more time on their hands so that they CAN go sit in a park an enjoy it first hand verse you are working in a competitive firm that demands multiple projects in a certain time period may not have that glorious time to appreciate the environment.
   The narrative parts of Isaac's Storm can also represent the verbal presentation that we had to endure to get our designs out to the boss or professors. We have to tell a story about our design to woo the buyer into investing in this project. Most investors aren't looking for the statistics or the factual info, they want to know how people will react to the "sculpture", are they going to want to use it? Are they going to spend their days playing on it with their kids? They want emotion as well as some facts here and there. This book is a great reference to how the process of an architect must endure when building for the environment.