IDEAS | Design Portfolio

A NECESSARY PERSPECTIVE

These two young fish are swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually, one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

—David Foster Wallace

My writing represents a variety of thoughts that I am marinating at any given moment in time. If you have something that will help me change my mind on a given topic, I would love to hear from you here.

Apr 263 min read

Baggage In, Baggage Out

We can all relate to the challenges of (de)boarding an aircraft. Every airline approaches the problem slightly differently, but no one...

Apr 262 min read

Magic Number 4

Geoffrey West and his team have discovered universal scaling laws that appear to govern our universe. These scaling laws seem to...

Apr 261 min read

Control Tower Battery

Airports continually embrace new technology to monitor and control air traffic, potentially rendering traditional control towers...

Mar 262 min read

Invisible Architecture

Much human potential is curtailed when we cannot afford a home—we need a roof over our heads before we can think about doing anything...

Feb 105 min read

Monumental Architecture of This Century

Bitcoin miners are the monumental architecture of this century. The defining characteristic of monumental architecture is a significant,...

Dec 30, 20235 min read

Facing Surprise

This image should look familiar. Yet something about it feels strange, uncomfortable, and perhaps even wrong. It may even take a second...

Sep 22, 20232 min read

The Energy Reserve

One of the questions everyone ultimately faces in the Bitcoin rabbit hole is: what happens in a crisis or emergency on a Bitcoin standard...

Sep 28, 20222 min read

Forest for the Trees

As architects, we spend a lot of time thinking about the carbon footprint of our infrastructure. However, our monetary system is upstream...

Aug 29, 20215 min read

A Necessary Perspective

Conceptual Visualization by Makoto Shibuya The science and data forecasting our climate challenge are available, but a distant and...

May 6, 20213 min read

Design As a Language

A Pecha-Kucha-style talk I gave at ZGF Architects in 2017. The slides were on a timer, so my timing is off, but the story is intact. I...

Mar 23, 20217 min read

How could Proof of Work blockchains change our cities?

An Energy Opportunity I tend to believe that every challenge is also an opportunity. Cities developed over centuries, but the world is...

Feb 11, 20212 min read

Connecting The Dots

As the Roman philosopher Seneca eloquently said: "luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." Similarly, I also believe...