The Best Damn Storage Unit Buildings

“Most obviously, there is the simple fact that one cannot claim at the same time that the entire built environment is to be architecture and that architecture is special and different.” -Habraken

Reading Questions that Won’t Go Away was different than any other architectural reading throughout school in its bluntness. What really stuck with me was the idea that not all of architecture can be special. By the definition of special that is true. Kind of sad honestly. If not everything architects produce can be special than what is the motivation of the work?

I did a summer internship in my hometown in Colorado a couple years ago and I will never forget what the principal told me during my interview. He said, “We design incredible contemporary architecture throughout the Rockies, but more importantly, we design the best damn storage unit buildings across the nation.” Word for word it was like that scene from the office with Jo Bennett hyping up her printers. At first I was really put off with that idea of a firm mixing in such a “ugly” commercial market type with their beautiful contemporary residences and commercial spaces. There bread and butter was working with a single developer that was building up about 4 multi story projects a year throughout the country. They weren’t necessarily ugly, but they sure as hell weren’t special and all looked about the same.

Special architecture projects come along when there is an opportunity for great design, great sense of place, and strong satisfaction from clients and the community. The other architecture projects that present themselves are strictly out of need. I’m not saying a need for affordable housing can’t develop into a special project, but this is just a dumbed down way of my thought process. So if you know the project won’t be special, how can architects stay interested and motivated throughout the process? Well as the great Meis says, “God is in the details”.

Looking back at the firm in Colorado, the amount of pride they took in filling a need, producing work at it’s best craft and detail for the scale, and making a profit, that is honestly a huge part of architecture that often isn’t talked about. Yeah it isn’t sexy laying out different modules of storage units all day, but if that service is allowing you to explore and push design in other projects then I can’t really say I disagree with it. Someone has to do it.