Pecha Kucha

This past Wednesday I had the opprotunity to go to an up and coming event in the architectural field, Pecha Kucha. For those that don't know, Pecha Kucha was started by a small firm in Tokyo who wanted a forum for discussing new ideas and seeing new work in the design field. Not just limited to architecture, Pecha Kucha has had graphic designers, product designers, fashion designers and fabricators all present in their unique format, and has quickly spread to dozens of cities across the globe. I attended the third one in New York City, this one located down in the Lower East Side after the previous two were held in Queens and Brooklyn. The basic premise of the event is that each presenter is allowed to show 20 slides and each slide will only be up for 20 seconds before switching to the next one. This allows the presentations to be brief and succinct, something that us architects are not well known for.

Overall, I thought that the event was pretty interesting. Some presentations were better than others, Joe MacDonald from Urban A&O seemed to have an interesting idea, but the microphone wasn't working and he spoke very softly so no one could hear what he was saying. It was so quiet, in fact, that you could actually hear the toilet flushing in the bathroom which was quite amusing to the slighly buzzed crowd.

My favorite presentation was by a graduate student at Columbia, Nader Vossoughian, who had an excellent, comedic presentation on pictograms and their impact on society today. Others such as Marc Simmons from Front just showed pictures of their work without any sort of idea determining the course of discussion, and my least favorite was Peoples Architecture who basically were just advertising their company for the entire time. There was a fashion designer there, Mary Ping who my girlfriend liked the most [naturally, being that she is in fashion], and who's work I enjoyed as it was very architectural in idea and asthetic.

I would say that I enjoyed the night, but I don't know how long the series will last. To me it seems like an event that could become very tired very quickly. But such is the way of New York City today.

The Office

I have never been the kind of person who has been addicted to TV shows, and with the exception of a a brief stint with the paranormal investigations of Mulder and Scully in The X-Files, I just haven't ever been able to keep interested long enough. All of this has changed in the past month or so however, and I am not hooked on NBC's hit comedy, The Office. I don't know if it's because I have recently entered into the every day working world or that I have a soft spot for British humour [albeit now transformed for US audiences] but something about it just keeps me in stitches for a half an hour every Thursday night at 8 or 8:30 [they like to vary the time slot on me.] Here I sit in my IKEA chair, eating macaroni and cheese and sipping on a Pellegrino all while laughing my head off at Dwight spraying a co-worker in the face with pepper spray.

I think part of the appeal is that they have been so able to show how varied relationships between co-workers can be. Being freshly released from architecture school, I have brought my passion for design and dedication to following through on an idea into a world that doesn't always reward one for putting for the extra effort. Some people really are there from 8 to 5 and can only count down the minutes until the clock hit 5. I think that everyone at one point has felt like that at work, and that is what makes The Office so appealing because we can all sympathize with one of the characters. Everyone has got a story about a crazy co-worker who collects bobblehead dolls and sucks up to the boss, or a story about a boss who wants to be so hip and cool with their employees that they schedule a booze cruise as an office team-building exercise and end up getting drunk and dancing like a fool in front of everyone. Throughout all of this the pressures of our jobs are lifted from our shoulders and we feel like our job is great compared to Toby, the poor guy who as to listen to the office couple nag at each other all day long.


All that, and Steve Carell is just so damn funny!!!