Expansive Architecture

"So when architects engage topics that are seemingly outside of architecture's historically defined scope - questions of economics or civic politics, for example - they don't engage those topics as experts on economics or civic politics, but rather as experts on design and how design may effect economics or politics."

Architects. We are distinct, we are are different. It's unreal to sit back and realize the time that I have spent here at Clemson. For the last 5.5 years, I have produced countless drawings, models, sketches, diagrams, and ideas. For the last 5.5 years I have felt myself become different from the students outside of Lee Hall. For the last 5.5 years I have become more focused, but possibly more blinded. For what we do here in this building isn't for us. It is for the people on the rest of this campus, this city, this state, this country, this world. We have built a knowledge, based in critical thinking, reasoning, proposing, and defending. We would be selling ourselves short if it were to remain in our brains or only in our buildings. We should reach out, we should expand, we shouldn't get burned out, we should be different. Engagement in the world outside of our designs is where change can truly happen. President Barker and Harvey Gantt, both examples of Clemson bred Architects who were hungry for this change. They were hungry for progress, for using their critical thinking skills to make an impact outside of Lee Hall. Lee Hall is where the magic is created, but the world is the playground in which our magic is implemented. It's about time more architects realized this. Life is a design problem, waiting for an Architect to solve it.