Architecture

Light.

Space.

Experience.

Connection.

I'll never forget the day I discovered the power move people, and what that means.

This is not moving people through a space, but the connection between a person and a place. It is the experience of really living.

I'd been in architecture school for a couple of years. It was rigorous. Physics and design were the hardest parts - difficult subjects, graded harshly. Our design class was studying various museum designs. My assigned museum was the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix, Arizona, by architect Antoine Predock of New Mexico. And I saw a design of procession, of meaning, of experience, and of connection.

The user descends into the earth, is compressed into the darkness, is exposed to the smells of being underground, and journeys to an open, lighted courtyard meant to celebrate the open, cloudless skies of Arizona. The purpose was to connect the user with the meaning of the place.

We've all experienced places that have deep meaning to us. The grandeur of a particular mountain - perhaps Zion National Park, or the Grand Canyon. The familiar, comforting feel of a house from your childhood. Vacation places, worship spaces, historical and natural and great and small places touch each of us.

The goal of good design, as we see it, is to bring out a bit more of our hearts into our everyday lives; to give the more mundane parts of our lives a touch more magic. Unfortunately, that isn't an easy task. It typically comes only with a fair amount of work by a competent firm.

But it brings with it a value that stands out in a crowded world.