People as Buildings

Had a long day... My mom left for Geneva yesterday, she has to undergo training with IOM, in the mean time, I'm left with all her chores. This means... bouncing between banks, paying bills, etc. etc. etc.

Took a short break to watch "Guess Who" ... relatively funny movie... it was funny in the sense that I had more fun observing the people who were watching it... cause some of the "funny" punchlines in the movie, were obviously out of context for a lot of them.

Went around the village again today, there's something I noticed ... with all the new houses popping up in phase 3, I realized, buildings/houses (again) are really so much like people... when the columns and walls go up, with the window openings clearly delineated, without any paint or exterior finishes... the houses, in their toddler stage... remind me of how honest and unpretentious kids are.

But as the roofing is installed, (whether its tile, or tile longspan, etc. etc.) and as the exterior treatments are put in... they start resembling teenagers, with the layers of masks and pretensions on.

As a designer, I've always been intrested in the concept of honesty... honesty of the spaces, the intention of the elements... the finishes and the materials...

Pondering all of this... I realize that in HS, I was a lot like these "noveau" houses... with their pastiche layerings of elements... the fake columns, the fake grilles, etc. etc. etc. I guess, I was (in a way) emulating the houses (and people) that I saw in and around my school...

But then, going to UST for college has opened my eyes to the rest of the world, to new people, and to a much more sensible aesthetic taste... which is why, I would like to think, that in one way or another, I have tried to minimalize my life and become a truer person... I realize that, as a designer, if I want to be minimalist and modern... I have to live my life according to the same ideas/concepts embodied in those philosophies...

College and the real world... they have their ways of changing you...