h. Play

Architecture books are insane to read. People spend an absurd amount of energy on what a style encompasses or how to follow a technique or a trend. Dogma everywhere.

Building a home is not about that at all. It is about Quality of Life.

What is Quality of Life (QoL) in a home? There are basically a few parameters:

• Room temperature
• Air quality
• Soundproofing
• Maintenance

Throughout a year and seasons, you want to never be cold or hot, you want to breath clean, healthy air, and you don’t want to hear noises from others. And then, you don’t want to have to spend too much time or effort managing said home. Maintenance needs to be low.

That is, I believe, what every single human being on earth is trying to reach in their homes regardless of background and location.

Those four points are intimately connected: to achieve well-controlled room temperature, you need an airtight building. To get an airtight building that allows healthy air quality, you will end up with a few materials that can do that, and even fewer than also allow good soundproofing. And if you can use green material, even better, but that’s another constraint.

Nonetheless, there are an infinite amount of combination here due to local material availability, local zoning and building codes, local climate, etc. The devil is in the detail, always.

The thing that never changes is that Room Temperature, Air Quality and Soundproofing are the goals.

Maintenance is a side goal but is HUGE. People completely forget about that one when planning their dream home, which is why they end up with far too big houses and unsustainable utility bills. We don’t have to.

By using very old techniques and/or high tech ones, from designs allowing airflow to modern heat pumps, we can reach maintenance-free homes with $200/year utility bills. That is why I want to build new so much! Most people buy a home and are blind to their bills. It might be $90 this month and $356 the next. I don’t want that. I want very predictable bills.

I want Quality of Life. We can all have it. It’s all doable.

It’s beautiful.

Reading furiously, mostly about architecture. I’m onto something.

Recently learned about GFRC, Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete. Extremely interesting material.

An earthquake hits Turkey and Syria killing 30,000 folks and it seems insane yet COVID has killed 130,000 in the world in the past month alone and we don’t care at all. Japan seems to be getting out of its worst stint right now, which is good.

I see Waymo cars everyday. My emails and chats write, correct themselves. ChatGPT is being tested left and right, which only makes it stronger every single time.

Meanwhile 3D printed homes are a reality and there’s a lot of BS going on around them, which means a lot of curation on my side to get to the actual meat.

At the same time layoffs are running wild, remote work really is transforming cities and automation is really taking over.

It’s hard to see the future.

Batman.

Titanic.

WWII.

Is that even possible?

My answer to mass shootings will always be this post I wrote last year.

Question: how do you not freak out about technology right now?

AI passing exams? Coding? Making music? It’s right now, not soon.

Soon, it’ll be so good that it will be enough for us.

The question screaming in my head is:

HOW DO WE SUSTAIN A SOCIETY SO RICH THAT ITS SALARY-BASED SYSTEM IS STRAIGHT UP INVALID? HOW? HOW DO WE COMPETE WITH SOMETHING DOING BETTER THAN US 24/7 AT QUITE EVERYTHING?

After the start of the pandemic, printing money, inflation and AI exploding this conversation should be in every mouth out there, seriously.

It’s so crucial and urgent. And the answer is simple:

Print money (UBI), give it to people, house us in very sustainable and healthy housing (so that we relieve earth from our growth’s impact and sustain ourselves into peaceful communities), and let us work collaboratively with AI (we keep doing what we’re doing with printed money as a constant supplement). No need for competition. No need for cyberpunk fantasy.

Simple. Not easy.

Rest in Power, brother.

Somewhere in the past. I don’t exactly remember the context or why I’m standing like a NPC or select-your-character in a fighting game, but I think I’m about to roll out with grandma’s car that I just bought for 1500 euros, about 15,000 dollars today probably.

I’ve had so much fun with this car, which is the best in the world hands down. It has to be experienced.

Sheeee. That’s how it started. My second trip ever in the US. I barely speak any English. I’m in love. The man behind me is about to take us in the sky on the 4th of July (my first one!) right when the fireworks start. Unforgettable. He sadly passed away not so long ago doing what he loved, flying a plane.

The other day, tradition was back! Before lunch we drink a Pastis or two. Or three. ANYWAY. It’s strong and has a unique taste. I had forgotten about the taste, smell and packaging. Memory lane indeed.

I haven’t changed much, in the end. Just add glasses, and pants that cover my ankles.

Smells. How do they work? I don’t know but we underrate the sense of smell wildly.

It’s unique to each of us, even more than hearing and digitally quite impossible to synthesize for now. Yet, it’s so powerful.

I have a perfume, I think it’s Star from Thierry Mugler which automatically reminds me of a friend and a bunch of situation, a particular laugh etc. From 25 years ago. In a second. My trip last week was an olfactive, Nose-apalooza festival.

It feels like smells capture time and space, with a pleasant or non-pleasant odor. It’s Whole. There’s no discrimination. The smell is this, then [insert super vivid 3D Dolby Atmos 16K HD memory].

I don’t know. I never lost my sense of smell in the past 3 years, it might even have gotten better.

Now I have a suitcase that I don’t really want to open because well, smells. They’ll die if I start using those clothes and tools! Please understand and respect my privacy in this difficult moment.

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