Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Breakthrough?

"The labor process is organized in terms of an interpretative framework that cuts across diverse work sites. This interpretative framework, anchored in intra- and extraprofessional institutions, and reflected in the social structure of the profession (Abbott, 1981), ensures that a particular form of relative autonomy is reproduced in the concrete labor carried out by practitioners operating independently in a market context"[1].

So, is what we need to do then, to define our interpretative framework?

[1] Brain, David. “Practical Knowledge and Occupational Control: The Professionalization of Architecture in the United States.” Sociological Forum 6, no. 2 (June 1991): 239 - 268.

Nothing to Lose but....

I am posting here the paper I have written and am trying to have published in the Journal of Interior Design. I'm supposed to know by June 30th, so keep your fingers crossed (unless it would slow down the revolution to do so). I really want this to go into the JID because I think that is where it will reach the most interior design educators. I don't work at a university where research is expected and so I have written this and rewritten this, etc. because it means so much to me. I'm working on a prototype model of the wikibok this summer and will post a link to it here as soon as it is anything worth looking at.

Okay - so I can't quite figure out how to link to the paper yet - I'll keep working on that and post it in a bit. This fancy technology is a bit much for me...

The Big 5

Once again, the ugly specter of requirement of NCIDQ certification as a qualification for teaching has risen to haunt the halls of interior design, striking fear into the hearts of young faculty and architects everywhere. I am so tired of listening to the same five people complain about the same three issues all the time and having it published everywhere as if somehow they are having a new thought. Let others participate in the knowledge creation and you'll have more ideas from which to draw. There's a small pool of people with all of the qualifications to do all of the things that allow people to have access to knowledge creation and dissemination and they continue to work to consolidate their powerbase to the exclusion of others. Then, they want to know (or maybe just pretend to want to know) why interior design doesn't have the broad based appeal and unified voice it needs to advance beyond petty squabbling.

Maybe if they would stop broadcasting, publishing themselves, creating more honors for which only they are eligible, appointing themselves to commissions and task forces and committees, and let someone, -anyone - else participate in the system, there would be an opportunity for some growth and change. However, I am not foolish enough to believe that they really strive for growth and change. Instead, they wish to ossify, as they have sanctified themselves and their visions of interior design and reap the benefits of being big fish in a little pond. If the pond grows, they won't seem so large. If the pond exists as water interacting with a larger hydrology then they certainly become insignificant. They are willing to sacrifice interior design in order to prove to themselves that they are right.

I wonder when it is going to dawn on enough people that whatever we've been trying for the past 25 - 60 years hasn't been working and so maybe it is time for something new. No one ever gets into the history books with the tag line "this person kept everything exactly the same." It's very rarely the old guard who moves the revolution forward but the new guard is very rarely liked by the old guard. Design education must politely sidestep these individuals, these roadblocks to progress. It should be polite because, although their actions are often horribly misguided, at one point they too existed in rebellion to the prevailing paradigm. Their contributions were viable and created change, but they have been allowed to settle in and become legends in their own minds. It is time to reorganize ourselves outside of the existing models of design culture if we want to survive, and I think we do.

We must stop looking to those who benefit most from the continuance of the current situation to be the agents of change. The time for revolution is now.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

My Beautiful Family




Pepe, Viva and Jack at the beach at Tybee. May 2008 - it was a beautiful evening and we spent a copule hours walking up and down the beach and watching the sun set.












Introduction

This is a first go at this - I'm young enough that I should have started a blog years ago, but somehow I missed the boat. I also just got a cell phone...I was walking through the airport and it was an impulse buy, probably brought on by the martinis I have to drink to overcome my fear of flying. I don't know the number though, so I can't really give it out to anyone, which is fine with me. Most of the time, I'm not really all that interested in being contacted.

I'm not sure what this will be exactly other than a collection of rants and raves or a place to share my life with those who care. In any case, I'm looking forward to this new interaction with technology.

May all you have, be all you need.