bring about world peace.

thanks to everyone who've been feeding me advice, support and encouragement over the last few weeks. your words have been most comforting in this time of what seems to be great academic darkness of mine.

i've been trying to figure out why i want to do research so much, and why i'm so terribly obsessed with theory more than i am with good design. i guess in many ways, i look to theory for an answer, or perhaps a likely avenue through which change can be affected in this world. to our chagrin, we've been told over the last few years that one should not try to solve social problems with our works. in many ways, there's much truth in it, as architecture at some eventual point is but a small institution in this dynamic society we live in. man builds and shapes architecture to reflect his life's purpose, aspirations, wants and needs. but at the end of the day, architecture is but a functional element that at best seeks to be something more than the sum of its parts.

we can all but promise to hone our design skills, to provide for people a solid image of what we believe would be a betterment to our quality of life.

i look to theory to offer a different thought, one that might change completely we live and then build. but that's theory, and if qiaos were right, it's something that occurs in parallel to the craft that is architectural design. what we should do, in his opinion, is maintain an inspired straddling "between thoughts and things".

in the last semester, my dear tutor Hélène Frichot and the group of us in tutorial contemplated this fact. we lamented the difficulty in marrying the two elements. she admitted that design is often always almost its own institution, but encouraged a constant engagement notwithstanding.

i guess, one of my greatest dissatisfaction with aki is in my slow realisation that there's little i can really do with it to bring about world peace. while it wouldn't be silly to dream, it would certainly appear frivolous sometimes. but what is our work to the world if it weren't dipped in a belief greater than ourselves, greater than the tools we weld for our craft? are we doomed to the trendy petulance of aesthetics and meagre application of the now vision greater than architecture?

while in the past i'd like to take comfort in the possibilities, the potentiality, and relish the notion that perfection is but a process, the promise of a possibility is slowly souring to be nothing but an empty promise.