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Let’s set the scene. It’s 2015, I am in the final two of a school spelling bee competition, standing on a stage with the kind of high-stakes tension usually reserved for anything other than a spelling bee. It is my turn to spell, the spotlight feels heavy, and I am handed my fate: hierarchy.

Now, I’ve always believed some words should just be simple, spelt exactly how they sound. In my head, the word was a straight line with no hidden curves. I confidently fired off, “H-I-E-R-A-C-H-Y”. Easy. Done. I was practically ready to take my bow and claim the trophy.

But then the judges hit me with the dreaded, “Are you sure? Is that your final answer?”

My heart dropped. Panic set in. Now this wasn’t an “official” spelling bee, so I was allowed to try again. I start doing the classic time-wasting. Can I have the definition? Can you use it in a sentence? I am mentally scrambling, trying to visualise the letters floating in the air, but my brain’s already checked out. I’m looking at the judges, trying to read their poker faces, but I’m totally blanking. I convince myself they are just trying to rattle me. I stick to my gut. And just like that, I fail. My opponent steps up, spells it correctly and walks away with the win.

I was utterly baffled. It felt like a glitch in the matrix. Where did that extra ‘R’ even come from?

Ever since that day, I have been haunted by the spelling of hierarchy. But here is the thing about being haunted by your blunders: you never repeat them. The correct spelling is permanently etched into my brain.

Looking back, there is actually a brilliant reminder that in our current culture, we are obsessed with the wins. We scroll through perfectly curated lives and success stories, often forgetting that failure is the ultimate teacher. We treat mistakes like they’re social death, but in reality, they’re the only things that actually stick. The moments that actually mould us into better, more self-aware people are rarely our victories.

I will never forget how to spell hierarchy for the same reason I know not to put my hand in a fire. As a child, I touched the flames and got burnt. The spelling bee was just a different kind of heat. It stung at the time, but the lesson lasted a lifetime. These little missteps build our character, shape our ideas, and ultimately guide how we exist in a society that is often too afraid to admit when it’s wrong.

So, the next time you come across the word hierarchy, I hope you think of me and that 2015 spelling bee. May my public defeat be your vocabulary gain.

And for the record: it is H-I-E-R-A-R-C-H-Y.

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On a completely different note, before I sign off, I want to say a massive thank you. We have just reached 234 subscribers! Whether you have been reading since the very first post or you have just found my page, I truly appreciate you being here. Thank you for taking the time to read my writing and for sharing in these stories, even the embarrassing ones!

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But the reality is more nuanced. Even if the term has faded from our professional vocabulary, the role itself remains incredibly relevant.

To the general public, these figures are essentially the celebrities of our industry. If you ask someone on the street to name an architect, they might still only be able to name one or two of these stars. While some in the profession might see this as a distraction or a shallow way to look at design, I believe every industry needs its leading lights.

They act as ambassadors, connecting what we do to the wider world. When people see these figures, it starts a conversation. It moves architecture from a technical behind-the-scenes job to something that people talk about. These figureheads give a human face to a complex process, and the industry has likely benefited more from having these ambassadors than it would have if they didn’t exist at all.

Of course, the starchitect label is also deeply flawed. The biggest issue being that architecture is never a solo pursuit; it is a massive team effort that requires the labour, patience, and creativity of groups of people.

It can feel unfair when a single principal or proprietor gets all the credit while a whole team of talented designers and engineers remains in the shadows. This is likely why the phrasing is falling out of fashion; we are recognising that buildings aren’t born from a single mind. We are moving away from the hero narrative and towards a more honest look at how buildings are actually made.

However, I don’t think the role should die out. Instead, it needs to adapt to the world we live in now.

Every generation needs a set of voices that can connect our work to society. In the past, those people were often defined by grand, iconic shapes. Today, our needs have changed. We are talking more about the relevance of what we already have, i.e., adaptive reuse, circular thinking, and the importance of not always building something brand new.

The starchitects of my generation will be the people championing these new ideas. They should be the ones pushing for sustainability, thoughtful renovation, and clever ways to use old materials. We need leaders who can make “reuse” feel just as exciting and revolutionary as a new skyscraper.

We cannot afford for architecture to sit in isolation, discussed only by those within the profession in jargon-heavy rooms. Architecture is for everyone. We interact with it every single day, walking down the street, sitting in a park, or working in an office, often without even realising it.

We need those bridges to the public. We need ambassadors who can speak for the industry and reflect our current values of care, climate responsibility, and community. We don’t need to lose the starchitect; we just need them to reflect the needs of a new generation.

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I experienced this first-hand at Gatwick Airport a few months ago. It was a classic travel headache: my flight was scheduled for 8 AM, but a lack of early trains meant my only option was to arrive the night before at 11 PM. That left me facing a very long wait.

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For someone who loves airports, I didn’t think much of this, but in the public area before you go through security and passport control, there is virtually nowhere to sit. At that hour, the check-in desks were shut. The cafes and shops were closed down for the night. The airport building itself was wide open, but it offered absolutely no comfort to the people inside it.

As a result, there were dozens of people just like me, scattered across the terminal. We were sitting on the cold floor, tucked into corners, trying to get some rest. It is the middle of the night; naturally, people need to sleep. It was deeply uncomfortable, and looking around at everyone sprawled out on the ground, a thought struck me: we should not have to accept this as our reality.

The real danger of spaces like this is that if we experience them enough, we get used to them. We accept that being uncomfortable is just the price of existing in a modern city or transport hub.

But it shouldn’t be. If the airport knows that people will be arriving overnight, why not provide a space for them?

It would not even require a massive, expensive redesign. It could be a simple, temporary setup. Imagine if, between 10 PM and 6 AM, when the shops are closed, a set of comfortable chairs was brought out to create a pop-up waiting area, and then packed away again before the morning rush. It is a highly practical solution that would make a world of difference to tired travellers.

This lack of seating is not an accident. It seeps into so many other aspects of our society and is tied to a much wider, more upsetting trend: hostile architecture.

This is the practice of designing public spaces to intentionally make people uncomfortable so they won’t stick around. It is the benches with unnecessary metal armrests in the middle so you cannot lie down, the sloped bus stop seats you can barely rest on, and the outright removal of public benches.

It is a clear dysfunction in our planning. It is deeply troubling that we are okay with seeing people in physical discomfort when the solutions are often so simple to implement. Why would we actively choose to keep people uncomfortable?

We need to do better as a society. We need to ensure that the places we build are designed with human comfort in mind, even if that comfort is just needed for a short window of time.

If an airport is going to keep its doors open to the public, it must make the environment as welcoming as possible for the people waiting inside. If people are not allowed to wait comfortably, then they shouldn’t open the building at all. But if the doors are open, the space should care for the people in it.

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Usually, when we talk about buildings, we get bogged down in technical jargon or aesthetics. But if you look closer, architecture is a silent dialogue between a space and the people inside it. In residential design, it is a conversation of being seen. It is a physical manifestation of knowing exactly what someone needs before they even ask for it.

I realised this over Christmas while I was back at home. In our living room, there is a specific chair in a specific location. It is the ideal spot for everything I need to do: I can see the TV perfectly, there is a power outlet right behind me, and the lighting is just right.

Without anyone explicitly saying it, my family just picked up on the fact that this is “my” spot. Now, there is a certain level of consideration given to that area because they know I inhabit it. It is like the house itself, and the people in it acknowledge my presence. Whether it is a favourite chair or a custom-built reading nook, these choices say I see you, I consider you, and I want you to be comfortable here.

This language extends beyond the walls of the house and into the landscape. We have a tree that I’ve always called our “Christmas” tree. When we first moved in, it was small. Now, it towers over the space. It has become a living signal of time passing. It holds memories of laughter and sadness alike. It is a reminder that we grow alongside our spaces.

Design choices like planting a tree or framing a specific sunset view aren’t just sensible decisions. They are acts of love intended to provide a positive emotional frequency for the people living there.

The tragedy is that this love often stops at the front door. Once you move into commercial or urban areas, the vibe shifts.

Think about hostile architecture. We see it everywhere in modern cities: spikes on ledges, slanted benches that make it impossible to lie down, or seats designed to be so uncomfortable that you won’t linger. It is the architectural equivalent of a “seen” notification with no reply.

If a home is a love letter, then a hostile public park is a cold shoulder. It speaks to a lack of love from the powers that be. While residential design is intimate and safe, our public spaces often feel built with an absence of comfort.

It feels like the people in charge of our public spaces don’t really love us back. While a home is built for intimacy and comfort, many urban spaces are built with a total absence of care. They are designed for transit, not for community. If we want a better society, we need to push the boundaries of what is possible in public design. We need spaces that encourage people to gather and stay rather than ostracise them.

Architecture shouldn’t just be about protecting the “we” inside a house; it should be about how we interact with the “them” in our neighbourhoods. Love doesn’t exist in isolation. When we design spaces that encourage people to gather, to interact, and to feel safe, we are building a stronger society.

We need more architecture built with love at its heart. We need public squares that feel as welcoming as that one perfect chair in my living room. When we build with love, we stop ostracising people and start encouraging the beautiful differences that exist within our communities.

After all, a building is just a shell. It’s the love we design into it that makes it a home.

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I have mixed opinions on the concept, but I cannot deny that it has given the country a second life in terms of marketing & tourism. What used to be a period for people of Nigerian descent to simply come “back home” has transformed into a tourism phenomenon. It has blown up so much that we are seeing people with no Nigerian heritage, no roots, and no prior links to the country visiting just to have a “detty December “.

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However, there is a glaring problem lurking beneath the festivities. While the marketing is excellent, there isn’t enough done at an infrastructure level to accommodate this rapid change in population size during the weeks leading up to and after Christmas.

This is where the fault lies. If you know you are going to get this volume of people entering the country every single year, yet do nothing to cater to them, you are putting immense pressure on the locals. For the people living there, this is just a normal December. They aren’t going anywhere. Suddenly, their daily lives are disrupted not because the country is growing, but because the systems cannot handle the temporary influx.

If nothing is done to address this gap, the trend could fall off as quickly as it came up.

When people come and realise the reality on the ground does not match the Instagram reels, word of mouth travels fast. This is particularly risky for those visitors who have no roots in Nigeria. Those of us with links to the country are likely to overlook the flaws. We have family, we know the places to go, and we understand how the system runs.

But imagine someone who doesn’t really “get” Nigeria visiting for the first time. They might realise that while the events are alright, the infrastructure is failing. You cannot move easily from place to place because the roads do not work as they are meant to. You cannot go on walks because there are no pedestrian sidewalks. Hotels and Airbnbs are quickly thrown together to accommodate the rush, often resulting in shoddy electricals, rooms with barely any windows, and unreliable water supplies.

It feels like a rush to make the most amount of money with the least amount of effort. This commodification of the period, without giving back in terms of quality of life or quality of stay, is a short-term strategy.

There needs to be a general effort within the country to prepare the space. We need to ensure that the general lives of those who live in the state aren’t negatively affected by the influx, while also ensuring guests are well taken care of.

It reminds me of the Olympic Village at the recently concluded Olympics in Paris. They utilized flexible architecture that could be transformed into housing blocks and units after the games were over. To me, this is a very intentional way of ensuring that the local population benefits directly from whatever investments were made for the guests.

We need a similar mindset. We need to treat the guests well, certainly, but we must ensure that the infrastructure improvements remain to take care of the people who live in these spaces long after the tourists have packed their bags.

That is how you sustain a tourism economy. That is how you keep businesses afloat year-round. And ultimately, that is the only way we can all continue to have a good “Detty December.”

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It started with my phone. I currently have a screen guard that is cracked. Yes, I am one of those people. I keep the cracked screen guard, and to be honest, my phone case is also a bit chipped and worn around the edges. But here is my thinking: it is still doing its job. I am content with it. I do not see the need to change it just for aesthetics.

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To everyone else around me, however, it looks old. It looks tattered. It looks used.

To be fair, it is old. But why does looking old automatically mean “bad”? Why is an aged product automatically seen as out of date or useless? Aside from alcohol, which we seem to prefer aged, we have developed a cultural allergy to the passage of time.

I think there is a direct link between our consumption practices and our perception of aging.

If you buy a laptop or a book and simply use it, it will eventually look older. That is the natural result of utility. However, there is a social signal attached to this wear and tear. If you are in a financial situation where you can afford a new one, you are expected to get a new one. If you keep moving around with an old, battered device, the outward perception is that you cannot afford an upgrade.

Are we judging the object, or are we judging the person holding it?

This connects deeply to how we view ourselves in this day and age. You have likely seen those side-by-side memes comparing a 30-year-old from the 1980s to a 30-year-old today. We look significantly younger now. There is just more we can do to slow down the clock.

But look at how we do it. We do it by consuming. You are consuming products, you are consuming wellness trends, and you are consuming endless amounts of “fixes” to ensure you maintain a specific view of yourself. Just like the products we buy, we are constantly upgrading and changing our appearance, whether we need to or not.

The underlying idea is that an old-looking thing—whether it is a phone case or a human face—is not desirable, and this is sad

With buildings, the conversation gets a bit different. There is a specific knack for loving old buildings, but it is complicated.

In countries like the United Kingdom, for example, there is a massive movement to preserve old structures. But preserving them doesn’t mean letting them age naturally. It doesn’t always mean renovating them to look modern, either. It is about holding them frozen in time and space. The interiors might be upgraded for comfort, but the facades are maintained to look exactly as they did centuries ago.

So, we are okay with things ageing, but only specific things are allowed to age. And even then, they are not really ageing; they are being preserved.

We decide what is worthy of staying stuck in time. If a building is deemed worthy, it stays. If it is not worthy, it gets pulled down and used for something else.

But who are we to decide which building is worth saving? How many buildings have been knocked down that meant nothing to the city planners but meant everything to the communities that lived around them?

This brings me back to the cracked phone screen.

We seem to live in a world where we pick and choose what is allowed to look old. A historic cathedral is allowed to look old. A human being is not. A fine wine is allowed to age. A laptop is not.

I wonder if aging itself is the problem, or if the problem is our obsession with controlling it. We are trying to curate time the same way we curate a shopping cart. We want the aesthetic of history without the decay, and the wisdom of age without the wrinkles.

Perhaps it is time I fixed my screen guard. Or perhaps, I will keep it just a little longer as a reminder that it is okay for things to look like they have lived a life.

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But if you’re studying architecture, or if you simply live in the world, it’s time to face a fundamental truth. Architecture is inherently political.

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It’s not just a nice idea; it’s an undeniable reality. You simply cannot have architecture sitting outside of politics. Everything that affects the spaces we live, work, and interact with can be traced back to some form of politics being played out, and often, it’s as direct as government policies and municipal regulations.

As a student, it’s crucial to understand these political currents. When you’re thinking about your next studio project, don’t just consider the form and function. Ask yourself, if this project were built in the real world, how would the politics at play affect it? More importantly, how would your completed project affect the politics at play?

Your university projects aren’t “real” in the sense that you’re not laying bricks, but they are a proving ground for the real-world impact you’ll eventually have. To ignore the political context is to design in a vacuum, a very expensive, potentially harmful vacuum.

I recently had a conversation with a very senior architect, and their story perfectly illustrates this entanglement. They spoke about working on government-funded projects and the severe constraints they faced.

The biggest hurdle? Time.

These projects often have to be completed within a tight window: sometimes compressed to fit within an election cycle. This is because the officials in power need a tangible, visible structure to show the population what they’ve accomplished within their term.

This political pressure dictates everything:

The kind of projects chosen. (Visible, splashy projects often win over essential but less-glamorous infrastructure.)

The materials used. (Cheaper, faster-to-install options over durable, long-term materials.)

The overall cost. (Leading to cost-cutting corners to ensure a fast, “successful” delivery.)

This creates a short-term mindset that often results in buildings and infrastructure that may negatively impact future governments and demand more money, time, and policy-making to fix them down the line.

Look beyond the explicit government contracts. Politics shows up in more systemic ways. Consider the infamous history of redlining in the US, a policy (or lack thereof, or purposeful regulation) that systematically made it difficult for certain geographic areas (and the populations within them) to secure investment, grow economically, and even access basic services.

These policies created intentional disparities. The result? Entire areas were designed, or allowed to decay, into underserved, economically isolated pockets. This wasn’t an accident of design; it was a direct consequence of policy.

The spaces we interact with every day are physical manifestations of political decisions made decades ago.

I’m afraid to say, there is no escape. Politics is the backbone of everything we do and everyone we are. There is no way to truly distinguish architecture from it.

As a designer, it’s not doing you any favours to assume they are separate. In fact, it’s a professional handicap.

You must dedicate yourself to understanding politics as much as you understand building design. You must recognise how political pressures, policies, and power dynamics influence the buildings and spaces you create.

The built environment is the ultimate record of our society’s political will.

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But look around the pop culture landscape today. The Architect has vanished.

How did the profession lose its main character energy?

Did the culture change, or did the brutal reality of the job finally crush the fantasy?

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Why was architecture the go-to career for screenwriters?

Because it was the perfect narrative. It sat perfectly between “starving artist” and “corporate drone.” An architect was creative enough to be soulful but employed enough to buy the love interest dinner.

Filmmaking is a visual medium. Watching a guy code is not the most interesting thing to do, but watching a guy build a physical model of a skyscraper or point at a construction site is cinematic.

The architect is usually fighting for “integrity” against a “greedy developer.” This makes them the underdog hero, fighting for art in a world of commerce.

Somewhere around 2010, the cultural definition of “visionary” shifted. The people changing the world weren’t designing a library anymore; they were designing apps. The Social Network replaced The Fountainhead. Architecture began to feel “old world” and slow compared to the speed of Silicon Valley.

The 2008 financial crisis decimated the construction industry. Suddenly, architecture wasn’t associated with sleek high-rises and romantic lofts; it was associated with stalled projects, layoffs, and economic precarity. The “stable” part of the “stable artist” equation evaporated.

In the 90s, we didn’t know what architects actually did. We just saw the models. Today, social media has exposed the “unsexy” underbelly of the profession.

We learned that for every “Ted Mosby” designing a skyscraper, there are thousands of exhausted junior architects spending 12 hours a day strictly formatting bathroom tile layouts in AutoCAD.

The biggest killer of the romantic image might be the industry itself. Architecture has long relied on a “passion tax, the idea that because the work is “art,” you should be willing to suffer for it.

In uni, architecture students are conditioned to brag about not sleeping. This bleeds into professional life. It is hard to be a dashing romantic lead when you haven’t slept in 36 hours.

For a profession that requires nearly as much schooling as medicine or law, the entry-level pay is shockingly low. The “wealthy architect” trope in movies was largely a lie, and the younger generation is beginning to reject the “suffering artist” narrative.

The Architect was a beautiful lie, a perfect Hollywood construct that allowed for creativity without the chaos of true artistry, and money without the cynicism of pure commerce. But in the past decade, a shift in cultural values, a financial collapse, and the light of transparency have all combined to expose the reality of the profession.

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But I actually disagree.

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I believe that everything is a performance. The world is a stage, no matter what you do or how you choose to present yourself. Even the act of being “anti-performative” is, in itself, a performance of counterculture.

We need to let people perform. It may not be a performance you personally enjoy, but belittling it by claiming it isn’t one’s “true self” is disingenuous. Why? Because everything we do is a performance of something.

Consider your daily trajectory. You are in school because you want to achieve a specific goal. You have milestones set up. All of this is you performing what you want for your future self, or performing how you want to be perceived by society. No one does anything for nothing.

The idea that performativeness is fake does not seem real to me. It is all a performance. For you to pick and choose which performances you deem fake is unfair because, on the flip side, someone else could look at your life and deem your own actions as performative.

I see this dichotomy clearly in my own work. I study architecture at an art school. Sometimes, it feels like we go incredibly deep into the arts, placing me further away from the traditional means of producing or designing buildings.

To some, this approach comes off as performative. And I actually agree. It is performative.

However, I do not use that word in a negative sense. I use it to mean that we are actively performing something. In my work, we are performing to show the humane side of buildings and the humane side of interacting with our environments.

I do not think there is anything wrong with that. I believe this artistic approach can sit in the same breath as very traditional, concrete buildings. They exist together. They exist to help each other. Why is one always viewed as “less than” when they are both simply performances of what they are meant to be?

We have to stop treating “performance” and “reality” as opposites. They are intrinsically linked.

Ultimately, you should not be afraid to be performative. Whether you are building an abstract structure or curating your own life path, you are engaging in an act of creation. Everything is a performance.

The world is your stage. Go ahead and perform.

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This is a dangerous loss.

If you can’t pause to enjoy and appreciate what is right in front of you, you are condemned to a lifetime of chasing. You are always hunting the next big thing, the next high, the next ‘hit,’ and it will never be enough. It will never satisfy you. This frantic, unsustainable pace is a recipe for chronic dissatisfaction.

Architecture and Slowness

It’s interesting to observe fields where slowness is not an option, but a prerequisite. Take, for example, the study and practice of architecture.

To become a qualified architect, you have no choice but to stop and commit to a long process. The quickest path to licensure takes a minimum of seven to eight years of education and rigorous practical experience (in the UK). In this profession, gratification is predetermined to be delayed.

If people could become architects in a year, they likely would choose that path because waiting around is simply not appealing in our hyper-accelerated culture.

But there is value in the forced wait.

Going through a long, complex process allows you to see a different side of yourself; the sustained effort reveals strengths and weaknesses you would miss otherwise.

Be the Tortoise

As a society, we urgently need to bring back slowness. While the abstract idea appeals to us, the practical application requires intent. We need to reintroduce friction and commitment into our lives through specific, actionable changes.

1. Connect with Natural Timelines.

To practice this, try gardening or “slow cooking.” Plant seeds rather than buying full-grown plants, or bake sourdough bread that requires days of culturing. These tasks force you to operate on nature’s schedule, which is indifferent to your desire for speed.

2. Adopt “Slow” Hobbies.

Take up an instrument like the violin or a craft like woodworking. These require hours of repetitive practice where progress is measured in months and years, not days.

The race for the immediate has cost us our patience, our appreciation, and ultimately, our satisfaction. It’s time to reclaim our time by slowing down. It’s time to rediscover the joy and depth that comes only from waiting, working, and watching something beautiful unfold over a long period.

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image sources:

https://za.pinterest.com/pin/764274999302857247/

Coffee is practically a secular religion. But lately, I’ve been walking down high streets where the ratio of cafes to literally any other business is approaching 1:1, and I can’t help but think: Surely, this is saturation.

I know how the free market works. I understand that people have the free will to open whatever business they like. But culturally, we have backed ourselves into a caffeinated corner, and it is time to push for something new.

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The Illusion of Choice

There is an economic theory about why similar businesses cluster together (think of the gas station effect). In theory, having three cafes on one block is great for the consumer. It forces competition on price, bean quality, and oat milk availability. It forces the barista to pull a better shot than the shop next door because you, the consumer, can just walk over there.

But while this offers a diversity of products, it creates a monopoly of experience.

When every available commercial space is turned into an espresso bar, our social options shrink. We are replacing variety with slight variations of the same theme. We aren’t choosing between a library, an arcade, or a sports centre; we are choosing between a darker roast or a lighter roast.

The Lens of Coffee

My perspective might be skewed because, full disclosure, I don’t drink coffee.

When you remove the chemical addiction to caffeine from the equation, you start to realize how overwhelmingly our social lives are filtered through the lens of coffee drinking.

“Let’s catch up.” (Get coffee).

“I need to get out of the house and work.” (Go to a coffee shop).

“Let’s go on a first date.” (Meet for coffee).

Because I don’t partake in the ritual, I find it hard to buy into these spaces. They usually look the same, smell the same, and facilitate the same type of interaction: sitting, sipping, and low-volume chatting.

We have allowed the “cafe” to monopolise the concept of the Third Place—that essential social surrounding that is separate from the two usual social environments of home (first place) and the workplace (second place).

Don’t get me wrong, I am not arguing for the abolition of the cafe. I am arguing for the diversification of spaces.

Here is what I would see between coffee shops:

• Listening Bars: Spaces dedicated to high-fidelity audio where the focus is on the music.

• Late-Night Bookstores/Reading Rooms: Places open past 6:00 PM that offer comfortable seating and quiet, without the pressure to turnover tables.

• Maker Spaces & Hobby Parlours: Venues where you can sit and work on a craft (knitting, drawing, writing) in the company of others, without it being a “coworking” office.

• Non-Alcoholic Social Lounges: Places that feel like a bar (dim lighting, mood, socialising) but serve mocktails and kombucha for those who want the night-out vibe without the booze or the caffeine.

We have enough places to get a flat white. What we are missing are spaces that cater to different moods, different times of day, and different sensory experiences.

image sources:

I have firsthand experience with this where I live. Kids in my area have been told they can’t access certain shared facilities unattended. The official reason? Complaints from residents about children “running around” or general noise.

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The irony, all the kids play around the facilities because there are no dedicated play spaces.

The entire development was originally sold as a “community-focused, kid-friendly space.” Yet, what was delivered is a place optimised for a very specific type of resident: the working adult, the rent-payer, the person who only uses the facilities for quiet, “adult activities”. There is no playground. There are no safe, dedicated children’s spaces. There’s nothing that allows a child to simply be a child.

When a safe, appropriate space isn’t provided, what happens? The whole area becomes the play space. The open greens, the common paths, the unused corners, they all get co-opted for play because children are biologically wired to move, explore, and create joy. And then, the predictable happens: people complain.

What are we doing? Why does it seem like children are the forgotten factor in every form of modern development?

Not Considered Equal Members of Society

It seems the only time children are truly remembered in development is when it’s a child-specific project, like a school or a specialised facility. But in the everyday aspects of life, in the planning of residential communities, town centres, and shared public spaces, it feels like they are not considered equal members of society to those paying rent or taxes.

We fail to prioritise and allocate spaces for them to simply flourish. This is a short-sighted and deeply damaging mindset that has a much greater social impact than many would like to admit.

A child can’t exist in a bubble. They exist in the society around them. If that society is systematically pushing them aside, shushing them, or confining them, it sends a clear message about their value.

We Need More Childlike Spaces

We need a massive shift in perspective, moving away from overly sterile, serious, and adult-centric design. We need to encourage spaces for children, yes, but I would argue we need to make everything more childlike, more playful, and less serious.

The world is becoming too stiff, too rigid. Everyone needs to calm down and remember the value of play.

This isn’t just about playgrounds; it’s about integration. We need to encourage inter-age facilities, spaces where children and adults can coexist and interact naturally. Children need mentors; they need to see adults modelling constructive behaviour in shared spaces. If every space effectively puts up a “No Children Allowed” sign, what are we teaching them? Are we raising children in invisible cages?

It’s time to stop treating children as a liability and start seeing them as the future of our communities. They deserve to be built for, not merely around.

We must demand that developers and planners account for the human need for play and growth, ensuring that the next generation has the spaces they need to simply be human.

Also, thank you all for 20 Subscribers!!! I truly appreciate it.

Reference:

https://www.centreforyounglives.org.uk/news-centre/inquiry-report-calls-on-the-government-to-restore-school-playtime-amid-warning-that-play-is-being-squeezed-out-of-childrens-lives

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Why? Because without an understanding of architecture, we are missing a critical piece of how our world is shaped and how we, as humans, function within it.

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Architecture is a Basic Human Necessity

Shelter is one of humanity’s most basic needs, and the pursuit of shelter is the beginning of architecture. It’s what allows us to stabilise, improve, and innovate. A society cannot truly flourish without a supportive built environment.

But this isn’t just about protection from the elements. It’s about understanding why the buildings around us look the way they do, why our streets are laid out in a particular pattern, and how all these elements come together to influence our daily mood, movement, and productivity.

Space is Interdisciplinary

The built environment doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it impacts and is impacted by nearly every other industry.

Consider a doctor working in a hospital. If that doctor has a fundamental understanding of spatial theory—of how light, flow, and layout affect patient stress and staff efficiency—could that insight inform the design process? Absolutely. While architects are the design specialists, they can’t have lived every specialised professional experience.

If professionals from all fields were able to articulate their daily experience within their specialised buildings through the lens of architectural theory, we could co-create a better built environment that truly works for the people who use it. Imagine a world where all spaces were inherently designed to enhance the human experience, not just to house a function.

Knowledge for Knowledge’s Sake

We live in an age where everything studied at university is expected to lead directly to a commodified career path. If you study architecture, the world assumes you intend to be an architect. This is a sad simplification of the value of education.

Most people who start an architectural degree do so with the intention of becoming an architect. But what if we could decouple the study of architecture from the pressure of the career?

Imagine a way to study architecture simply for the knowledge of space and design, recognising that it is such a deeply ingrained part of our collective society. That knowledge wouldn’t just be for designers; it would be for everyone who walks into a room, uses a street, or calls a building “home.”

Do you think a better understanding of architecture would make us all better citizens of the built world?

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This creates a kind of paralysis. We’re unwilling to try new things because we assume they’ll be bad. We don’t want anyone to see that messy, early stage. But here’s the unavoidable truth: if you can’t allow yourself to live with something being bad, there’s simply no way to ever get better.

Think about it: everything you are good at now, you were once bad at. The big difference for most of us is that we got good at our core skills when we were much younger. It felt like no one was watching, so we gave ourselves permission to fail, to look silly, and to gradually improve.

For example, I started writing on Substack in September. If you asked anyone to describe my interests, writing would be nowhere near the list. But here I am, writing to possibly no one because I want to get better, and even if for some reason I never improve, I can always say I tried, and that’s the most important thing to me.

Is it uncomfortable? very much so. Sometimes it feels like everyone is watching. This constant feeling of being observed can prevent you from doing anything new. You end up limiting your potential and your abilities because you’re scared of what people might say.

I know everyone says this, but it’s still profoundly true: No one actually cares as much as you think they do.

You have to deliberately let yourself be bad at things if you want to improve. Allow yourself to learn, allow yourself to go through the rugged, awkward, beginner times, and simply see where it takes you.

Ultimately, you don’t want to regret not doing something because you assumed you’d be bad at it.

If you’re bad at something, it’s up to you to change that, and the only way to get better is to do. If you don’t do the thing, how do you expect to improve?

No one is watching as closely as you believe. We live in such a short-attention span economy that people will genuinely move on to the next piece of content or discussion in about thirty seconds. Even if you are the topic of conversation for a minute, it will be forgotten by tomorrow.

Stop living for the perceived judgment of others. Start living your life, and be okay with being a beginner.

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But there is one crucial lesson I believe every student should internalise, and it’s less about drafting and more about mindset: You need to obsess over learning, not over being perfect.

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The Illusion of Perfection

The student experience, particularly in design, often feels like a non-stop sprint toward an unattainable finish line. We’re taught to push boundaries, to critique, to iterate, and in that process, the drive for “good enough” often morphs into a frantic, all-consuming quest for perfection.

But what is perfection, anyway?

I want you to question that word every time you feel yourself getting stuck. I’ll often psychoanalyse myself by asking: Have I ever seen a drawing I thought was perfect? Have I ever walked a floor and thought, This is it, flawless? The answer is always no. There is always something that could be added, refined, or viewed from a different angle.

Perfection, in a creative field, is often an illusion, and the pursuit of it is a cruel trap.

Escaping the Labyrinth of Endless Refinement

In the grand scheme of your design education, there is far more value in developing a broad, resilient skillset than in relentlessly polishing a single output.

Think of your studio work as a laboratory for skill acquisition. It’s better to:

1. Attempt a complex massing model in new software you’ve never touched.

2. Dive into an uncomfortable territory.

3. Fail spectacularly on a new rendering technique.

...than to spend an extra 40 hours obsessing over the texture map on a single rendered chair, making it perfectly photorealistic. The former yields new skills you carry forward; the latter yields a single, highly detailed chair.

If your entire presentation hinges on one or two high-detail images, by all means, polish those gems. But more often, your final project is a narrative woven together by a series of plans, sections, diagrams, and renders. Obsessing over one element until the 11th hour is self-sabotage. It hinders the whole project because, when the clock runs out, you only have one perfect piece that can’t tell the full, cohesive story.

Know When to Stop

We’ve all been there: the work never seems good enough, and the only true motivator is the deadline. But imagine if you consciously chose to stop an hour earlier. What if you took that hour and showed a little love to your un-diagrammed site plan, or developed a clearer title for your boards?

A shift in perspective is often all it takes. You need to be the editor who knows when a chapter is finished enough to move on to the next one.

At the end of the day, your final critique rests on the strength and clarity of your overall narrative. That one beautifully rendered axonometric is just a single sentence in the novel of your design. It should elevate your story, not derail your progress or consume your entire life.

Stop chasing the flawless. Start chasing the knowledge. That’s the most powerful advice I can give.