h. Play

India seems to be pivoting into an authoritarian regime.

Europe’s far right is stronger than ever and supporting Israel, a not so chill democratic state.

Russia. Enough said.

America and its right-wing nuts reverting things that should never be reverted ever, like women’s rights to abortion.

I struggle to find a way out of this absurdity because at the same time, we’re more connected than ever. We’re not stranded by a lack of communication, we’re drowning in it.

So, it’s not a matter of knowledge. It’s a matter of framing. Phones and algorithms have supercharged the most unhinged behaviors and takes. It’s wild to witness but mostly, it’s impossible to modify due to the fact that those two things that didn’t exist 15 years ago, are private and/or personal. Everyone is on some self-reinforcing shit, basically.

How do we go back to calm and sanity? I’ll say it again: Universal Income. Sustainable Housing.

Nothing else can improve democracy. Nothing.

I basically never drink in California. But I hop on a plane to France and of course, I start drinking in it. Half celebration, half micro-dosing.

And so the haze starts.

I realized that from that mini bottle of wine in the plane to me being back in L.A., I never stop drinking. Alcohol is everywhere in France, except for breakfast, unless you’re taking it at 11am and that hey fuck it, let’s have a little drink, it’s about to be lunch anyway.

Everyone there is basically constantly on an alcoholic haze, wondering why everything is slow or mean (keywords: constant alcoholic haze). One classic move is someone pouring themselves another glass and going on a even more racist diatribe lmaooo. You know it’s coming the second they grab that bottle, it never fails. And because I’m inebriated as well, I like to pour some oil on the fire sometimes.

That’s what alcohol does and it’s fun until it kills someone, which is how women succumb to their partners at an alarming rate. But France keeps saying how alcohol is culture.

It’s a VPN to one’s worst to me.

Testing Harold’s Halftogon House print in the sun, orientation as close as possible to the real deal (full south here).

I added some herbs in the planters and I can’t stop thinking how amazing it’s going to be. Look at this! Imagine your ass sitting in the tiered-seating area, near the plant, taking the sun and typing on your laptop. Or at the top, watching a movie in a super cozy, sunken couch.

Here I was testing the kitchen skylight (1500mmx500mm), simulating a noon sun. It looks like the light would hit the kitchen island perfectly, then. Natural light when cooking is a must, and coming from above is the best.

I am so building this. It’s 1/100th now and it will be 1:1.

I’ve had so many compliments for those kicks in the past ten days that I have to post them. They feel great, they look cool and I’ll be sad to tear them apart kickflipping them on a bank but, that’s their destination! I have two old pairs of shoes to destroy first though.

I forgot to talk about size in architecture.

Even with 3D and a 3D model, it’s super difficult to get a feel of space. I look at my prototype’s LDK area, thinking it’s fine. And then I doubt it: it feels way too large or far too small, somehow.

So I go back to numbers and they look good: 150cm/5 feet between a couch and a chair, sounds just normal. But in 3D it looks crazy sometimes.

I look at houses for inspiration and so many have outrageous sizes. Anything beyond 150m²/1600 sq. foot for living is wild to me. I look at those villas and I’m like:

• 320m²/3444 sq. foot for a family of four? How many miles a day you walk in there? Why would you have such massive, empty spaces to go from a bedroom to a bathroom or kitchen? Why do you have a separate “family” room in your giant family home?
• How many folks actually visit, knowing that you live away from the city in that giant house? How many people actually use your guest rooms? How often that insane 10-seat dining table is used for? You heat and cool all of that for no reason but a possibility? In this economy?

The best parties I’ve ever been to in L.A. have been in small bungalow houses. You can have a small house and 30 folks having a great time in it. You just need to open the windows because the heat goes up so fast with that many human bodies crammed in.

Small is amazing in architecture, despite what architects and clients think. Small spaces connect with the human psyche better, I believe.

Now small spaces, sure. Partitioned spaces, no. Wide open spaces are preferable. More enjoyable.

Like this (Paraty House in Brazil), but way smaller (this one is 840m²/9044 sq. foot).

• It’s incredible how bad kitchens are designed in homes most of the time. Islands with awkward bar stools and non-matching dining table next, and a breakfast nook somewhere. Too complicated. A kitchen island with dining table projecting in one direction like in HHH, is the best design IMO.
• I’m a Horizontal Hoe but sometimes a bit of verticality is nice and E. Fay Jones is a king of his own with this:
  
  
  The stacking and repetition are finely done and I enjoy it. Stoneflower is an AirBnB by the way. I might.
• Japan continues to blow my mind with designs and ideas. For instance, this one called Kokage by SUEP. Its cooling system is “chef’s kiss” They pump up cold water from the underground which then circulates into off-the-shelf underfloor heating panels fixed on walls! This means soft, radiant cooling, which is in terms of health, just the best. Affordable. And sustainable. Brilliant.

The wall shape is optimized for cooling, looking cool and kind of like a tree. They otherwise optimized sunlight by moving walls accordingly, giving space for pretty skylights:

Using every single source of possibility, from the land to technology. SUEP’s approach is intensely holistic and I’m in love with that.

• The earth itself is a magnificent regulator of temperature: a mere 80cm/2.6 feet down and it is already significantly cooler. Why don’t we use this natural advantage for construction? Because the A/C business wouldn’t be worth $24B (US only) like it is today. Only Florida would run A/Cs and that would be great. We’re a league of morons.
• On the furniture side (which I kind of consider as “proximity architecture”), no doubt Eames and Knoll are just timeless. Thinking about having a couple of these in HHH:
  
  They’re just so comfortable to chop it up with a friend while listening to some music.

Yes, I’m conscious that while I’m prototyping my custom house using the latest technology available, people in Gaza lose their family homes for no reason, with no possibility to stop it, while Japan and China have a surplus of houses that goes into dozens of millions, just rotting onsite.

One might say “shit is crazy” but I’m thinking, we ought to do better jfc.

Rae Sremmurd in 2014:

“I ain’t checked the price (I got it)”

Me in 2024:

“my brothers in Christ are you out of your mind if you don’t check the price at the very least twice in 2024, tf ym???”

(that beat was kind of everything during fall 2014, soundtrack to working in Hollywood. Music stars, Calabasas, 101 and Santa Monica, trying to make this bread one 12-hour shift at a time)

Harold’s Halftogon House (HHH), is being designed. I’m about to print (1/100th size) the second prototype.

Living room, tiered seating, main Table to the right, probably a steel structure cantilevered from the kitchen island (no legs means bliss). 200mm (89”) long, 100mm (39”) large. Why a main Table? Because it’s needed in a human being life. To spread things out, and get stuff done OR host a very nice dinner sitting about 10. Same idea.

The table on the left is indeed a model I replicated from Eames and it’s about the same size (226mm), for visual reference and volume.

View from the mezzanine, where the sunken (not designed yet) media nook (big monitor and books mostly) will be. I still need to design a bunch of built-in planters, as I’ll line them up against the windows, providing some cooling effect and looking good as well. Trickling down the tiered seating area, yes.

Outside of the elliptical table, sliding doors and fridge (tall rectangle on the right side of the main Table on this screenshot), yes, everything can be 3D printed here.

Yesterday I went through adding the skylights to the roof, finally. It’s going to be awesome to play with light to see where the sun would hit underneath the green roof with my hands! I’m so excited, y’all.

Oh, the University of Maine just released a new 3D printer, which can print structures 96 feet (29m) by 32 feet (9.7m) and 18 feet (5.4m) high. HHH is currently 64 feet (19.5m) by 43 feet (13m) and 11 feet (3.6m) high. It could almost be printed out in one shot from this new factory!

80 hours later, it would be drying. The house would be 90% done.

I can’t stop smiling, y’all.

It is dystopian out there.

Folks walk around, you don’t know if they have seen you, even if you’re wearing a super loud yellow shirt.

You don’t know if they can hear anything. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Big headphones with noise-cancelling tech on? Those are like adult babies who have literally no conscious of what’s going on around them now.

They talk to someone or maybe they talk to themselves, you never know these days with small wireless tech, hair and clothes.

They drive or walk around exclusively looking at their phones. I noticed that often, no one can stay straight in a lane or on a sidewalk. It feels like everyone is wasted.

Spatial awareness is disappearing and simultaneously, folks believe that they’re in constant danger.

Meanwhile robots proliferate, from little droids on the sidewalk to cars driving themselves around.

Meanwhile tons of people want to be creative but fail at practice every day and still demand to be creative. Bruh! Complacency and deceitfulness are too popular these days.

Price increase everywhere at an alarming rate, subscription abuse, it’s all gross.

The internet! A whole mess these days. You can’t find shit and all sites are so aggressive to get your info or pattern-match you with how long you paused on that picture with previous data they have. It’s insane.

AI has been nerfed and spits odd shit right now. But it’s taking over jobs for sure. Fast.

Software and apps! They will change everything after an update and it’s confusing for weeks if not forever. We don’t even register the offense anymore, we just slug through the new interface until they’re done doing their dumb A/B tests, and then something changes, sometimes and too often for the worst (tyranny of the majority).

I truly feel like living with zombies while society at large is aggressively against me for no other reason than it can.