Posts

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Where will architecture focus computing capacity?

There has been a convergence in the architecture world between design and computing. I have been posting a series of ‘parametrically’ designed Poche structures to illustrate the power of parametric data to surround with presence, especially when applied to the malleable truss structure that is Poche.

Walk with me here as I lay this out: say an architect uses parametric design, which is when designers input variables—like dimensions, climate data, or component limitations into computational software, where an algorithm generates optimized shapes, visually, think Zaha Hadid. You will get a deeply informed building shape that is deterministically correct but it may or may not become architecture. This is where the interface between AI and the designer takes on critical importance. The input that was provided at the beginning, the prompt if you will, can be sourced from deep knowledge or simply from data. Like anything in our digital world, you can get involved from intelligence or by skimming. If you own the input, then the output will resonate with your talent. Master architect input, architecture output.

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Our next move is tangled up in the essence of dwelling

When conventional can no longer meet the needs of a rapidly changing world, you can jump ship or you can see the possibility hidden in plain sight. I have been considering the tenure of House alongside our capacity to dwell. I think that House is a convention that might no longer meet the needs of humanity in our rapidly changing world. Wait – humans have sought shelter since the beginning. In America we take House to mean x# bedrooms and bathrooms, the kitchen and living rooms, with a basement or attic for storage, and a garage. These expectations are being eroded in the rental market yet folks living there still aspire for the House. How do you jump ship? Self-built tiny houses, Airbnbs for nomads, and campervans are some who have jumped off the House ship. I choose to look deeply at what is here because I believe that our next move is in plain sight and I think it is tangled up in the essence of dwelling.   

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Remember that your authentic work is play.

If you have ever perused the studios of artists you admire, you will likely find 3 things in common: volume (depending on the medium), abundant natural light, and mess. We all know that play is messy, in the throw of creation, a frenzy of activity and materiality are released. It is unavoidable. But it is also true that mess in a creative’s place is cultivated. Carefully curated bits of material or slips of paper, pages taken from magazines, books marked on certain pages. All are triggers to step into the creating flow. Necessary. Plan for this.

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To Be

My career has primarily been houses, accessory dwelling units currently. But here is the thing I have been staring at, even with small dwellings, it seems that the thing we are tasked with is housing the stuff. The word change from house to dwelling has not been materialized. I mean to decipher this, beginning with the smallest unit. This week I introduce the Snug.

House: a verb meaning to provide with shelter, to serve as a container. Dwell: a verb meaning to live as a resident, to keep the attention directed.

I don’t need a place where I do nothing… do I? 

I don’t need a place where I do nothing… do I?  Snug: In the space between wake and sleep, we dream. At first you may find that nothing happens in your snug. But once you build it and use it, something will happen. The Lost Art of Doing Nothing  .   The Brain at Rest  .   Do Nothing  .  Niksen  .  you really don’t need to hear that doing nothing is where creativity rises, but perhaps what you might need to hear is that if you create a space for yourself and then develop a pattern of settling into that space, you might just find that remarkable things begin to happen. Lots of folks and lots of science dive into this. But sometimes it’s the poets that speak most clearly: What we dream becomes where we stand (TT Williams, from The Glorians). I have pulled away from learned places and distilled architecture to the essential molecules of place: light and earth. I call it Snug.

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To speak of a garage.

Shifting from a familiar structure we all know as iconic to our houses in America and blurring right past the decades of customizing the workshop with fancy benches and shelving and lighting, bumping over the grunge bands that grew up there and the inventors that found solitude ‘out in the garage’, and landing right..splat..in 2026 where we just passed codes removing the requirement to store an automobile on your property. And just like that – the end of the mandated garage. There is a crack in the solid foundation of what we think of as house. A house has a garage because you need to store a (or many) car(s). Perhaps the time has come to rethink what we are storing.

What are we storing in our mind: Dismantling a belief

Unique shapes are hard and expensive to build…says who?  

Recently, my meditation landed the following on my lap: “Don’t get into street fights.” I tend to be a coward anyway, so this did not frighten me. It wasn’t until I recalled a moment in a game with friends where, as the tension built toward the end of the game, one of the players pointed a finger and disclosed something that instantly put me at a disadvantage. I cringed and protested. In the height of the emotion that thickly spread over me, I completely missed the opportunity that had also presented itself. Completely missed it.  Sometimes things do not look like what they truly are. Poche is a simple manufactured truss AND all trusses are custom.

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A garage is a garage, is a garage, is a garage…until it isn’t.

I have a story about two garages. In the first, the client is excited to finally get their workshop in the garage. They have a meticulous layout of every tool and bench, fully dimensioned and set. As we designed, every decision was second and third guessed. Their builder pushed for what he knew how to build again and again. You can see where this was going, right?   There was no way to reconcile what was possible with the existing garage with all that was holding it in place. It remained a garage. In the second garage, the owner had slowly been inhabiting her garage for her creative work. A wall had broken free, the tilt up door had given way and the floor had been overlaid with a thick slab containing radiant heat and was pigmented in a mottle of color. It didn’t take much to release the rest of the garage. Can you feel the difference? In one scene the garage refused to let go, in the other, little bursts of letting go were occurring all around. The first client had occasional flickers of joy in his eyes, but, always, thinking overcame. The second client could hardly contain her joy.

If you want to get new work done, check in to see if you are able to surrender your thinking. This isn’t so much about forcing something because, quite frankly, sometimes you are ready and sometimes you are not. Which garage is yours?

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Looking today’s moment in the eye

A week ago I posted the one with me at the summit of Kilimanjaro. What I didn’t do, was look today’s moment directly in the eye. I am championing the creation of a Collective to put intelligent small house options into housing for the people. What? Grab a cup of tea, sit down and see how this fits: Poche 2026: a collective

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This is the architect who summited Kilimanjaro

It was 10:15am on the 25th of September, 2002 when we stepped onto Uhuru Peak. The energy on that peak far exceeded any expectation and furthermore, it left me with a very powerful intent. Recognizing the momentous lineage of humanity that allowed me to be here, I vowed to do my part to evolve us. 

I climbed mountains for over a decade, managing to summit 34 of Colorado’s 14ers and summited the tallest point in the continental US, Mt Whitney. The tip about mountain climbing is to train as best you can to get as strong as you can, then go climb ze mountain. In architecture, I have trained for over 4 decades and built capacity that only arrives by having done it, again and again. I am now climbing the mountain with everything I have. Join me: Poche Introduction 2026

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It was undeniable

Part Two: I attended PAACADEMY Design Tech Talk a few weeks ago because StructureCraft was one of the speakers. I (Poche) was a tiny guppy among sleek whales. But here is the thing, the impressive scale difference was irrelevant because where Poche was headed had been undeniable. The world of parametric architecture, where the environment, geography, zoning, and truss constraints push and pull to make intelligence was right there in that first wobbly sketch. And the power embedded in that sort of sketch has cajoled me into places I would never have entered. I make small houses. Computational design and all its heavy lifting has nothing to do with my work. Or does it?

Being pulled by something undeniable is not negotiable.  It will find a way to catch your attention and land you on its path. Poche thrust me into the world of startups, famously thick in Boulder, where the irascible lessons peeled me apart. Pivot, pivot, pivot: I know the path is here somewhere. And then it landed. Design software. And what do I know or care about software? – the universe is laughing! But the bell kept dinging every time I faced ‘software’. The tech talk illuminated all the micro dots that I had noticed but failed to see (innovation afoot?). Software is not my landscape. Yet here I am. The Poche Optimizer is design software. It will enable that undeniable sketch to enter the world. I know the power of those sketches, we call them Parti, but never before has a Parti jumped beyond its’ specific site. The Poche’s Parti entered the entirety of architecture. And at least a decade ahead of my wee studio.

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What Does It Mean to Innovate?

What if breaking through isn’t about being first or loud? What if it’s about seeing something that has gone unnoticed and taking the time to have a good long stare at it?

Take trusses – they have been around for thousands of years, modern plate connected trusses came about in the 1950s, yet the Poche truss was awarded a USPTO patent in 2025. This truss frame came about from my pivot away from big custom houses to small houses and the relentless sketching of small buildings that followed as I searched for the key to customizing shape without the complexity of framing. I like intelligent buildings that respond to their circumstances, a lot. A perfect storm took shape as my love of trusses entered the sketching delirium. IT showed up as a wobbly structure being pushed and pulled. Once seen, it became undeniable.

Part One: when the patented Poche went onto its first jobsite and I watched it disappear into the hands of people who build, I was stunned. Something unexpected happened. I saw that this new way to build was not a novelty. They got it, those framers just picked up the trusses and built, as they had thousands of times before. It was elegant, it was beautiful. It was undeniable. It was intelligence made visible. Those framers understood it immediately because it made sense. Poche got the quiet nod from someone who hadn’t needed to sketch it for the umpteenth time to know.

That moment shifted something in me. So maybe the question isn’t: “Is this new?” but rather: “What does it expose that had been unseen?”