Indulge me.

I once wrote a poem called “Profession of Mission” in which I attempted to write a personal mission statement. The poem rambled a bit, begged for clarity in my life’s purpose and ended with the word “crossroads” – no punctuation or finality – intentionally open-ended.

I wrote the poem in 2009 at age 44 – clearly the beginning of Mid-Life Crisis. Yes, young’uns, even older folks wonder what to do with the rest of their lives.

One week ago, at age 47 – no closer to an answer or closure – I took myself to Manhattan.

If I can “figure it out here, I can figure it out anywhere,” right?

I’m pleased to report that I found clarity in Chelsea … without a stitch of help from any of Woody Allen’s analysts.

But I did have help.

I attended a daylong workshop called “Design the Life You Love” created by New York-based product designer Ayse Birsel.

Ayse became a friend after I heard her speak at a user conference put on by a client of mine, Swedish design-software company Configura. Born in Turkey, Ayse is Pratt Institute-educated, a Fulbright Fellow whose work is in the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, both in New York City.

She is perhaps best known for designing Herman Miller’s Resolve office system and Moroso’s M’Afrique collection. She and partner Bibi Seck own Birsel+Seck, a design studio that also works with Johnson & Johnson, Hasbro, Hewlett Packard, OfficeMax, Renault, and Target. Ayse designed a potato peeler for Target that’s just $7.99, she says. So, even if you never make it to MoMA or Cooper-Hewitt, you can see (and buy) her products at a Target near you.

Ayse has taken her product design methods – which she calls Deconstruction:Reconstruction™ – and developed the “Design the Life You Love” workshop with concepts and exercises that even non-designers can easily grasp.

The workshop has become a mission for Ayse: “Our lives are our most important project,” she says.

Read more…

Interior lighting has a profound influence on our psychological and physiological processes, so say researchers. Light affects our hormonal and chemical balance, sleep patterns, productivity, and mood. With the incandescent bulb on the verge of extinction and the global push for energy efficiency, we continue to seek environmentally friendly lighting alternatives. But some new lighting technologies, such as the CFL bulb, contain mercury and other hazardous chemicals while they emit UV radiation, which could pose long-term health risks including cancer, depression, diabetes, and fatigue. As we spend some 90 percent of our time indoors, we need to find other design alternatives that promote a healthy interior and protect the environment.

Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese art and science, can help. The practice suggests that the strategic placement of light sources in a room can improve our health and wellbeing. The proper distribution of electromagnetic radiation transmitted by light is fundamental and Feng Shui strives to enhance quality of life by channeling positive (Qi) energy to create a perfectly balanced environment. In addition, the shape, material, and color temperature of a lighting fixture should be carefully considered in order to promote wellness. I designed the fixtures in this blog, following by Feng Shui principles, to counteract some of the most common illnesses that affect millions each year.

Depression Lamp Sketch and Photo

With an estimated 19 million Americans diagnosed with depression, an accent lamp may be ideal to counteract this psychological disorder as it focuses energy in a specific area of the room. The lamp would feature two nodes of linen burlap fabric encased in glass and connected by a stainless steel frame, in order to boost self-confidence and mental strength. According to Feng Shui, glass exhibits properties of slow, sinking “water” energy, also seen in those who are depressed. When glass is used in conjunction with linen fabric and a 4,000K LED lamp, the glass functions to cool down anger and stress. The north side of the living room and the southeast corner of the bedroom are optimal locations to achieve balance and reduce exposure to electromagnetic energy. Read more…

Image courtesy of Michael Rotondi, Roto Architecture.

Michael Rotondi, prinicipal of RoTo Architecture, is well known for his architectural work and intellectual rigor. One area of his expertise is the design of sacred spaces. Curious about his thoughts on designing spaces for some relatively unknown religions, how he finds information about the religions themselves and their traditions, how or if he approaches the design of sacred spaces as opposed to secular spaces, Guy Horton and I designed some questions for Rotondi.  Here is what he had to say.

Sherin Wing: First of all, do you engage in spiritual practice?

Michael Rotondi: I came back to spiritual practice but not religious practice. I started reading [again] a lot about any society that had figured out how to integrate matters of the mind and matters of the heart because in our Cartesian world they’re really separated out. I don’t think it was so much Descartes’ doing, well, it was, but it was also that he had to separate the body from the mind so that the church didn’t burn him at the stake.

I started reading a lot about mostly American Indians and made pilgrimages to Indian country and read the creation stories in the places that were described. I tended to do this in the past when I read Baudelaire’s Le Spleen de Paris, to become embedded in the place that was being described. I spent a lot of time with American Indians and that led to Eastern philosophy and at the same time to how to integrate it with the stuff I grew up with. I read a lot of Thomas Merton. And then I began working with American Indians in South Dakota. I was going back and forth for six years working on projects and spending time sitting with the elders.

I worked with an American Buddhist group in Barre, Massachusetts for a couple of years. And I would practice. I practiced all through that period in a more formal way. But vipaśyanā is somewhere in between formal and informal practice. It’s really a meditation practice so I took to that. I also began spending time with Tibetan Buddhists for six-seven years. Taking projects like that on is an opportunity to spend time with the lamas. Practicing so I could know in a more intimate way what needed to be designed. There are things we can extrapolate from a number of other experiences and recombine them. As architects, to design things, design houses, I mean whatever we design, we’re really good at recombining things. But there are some things you have to experience firsthand, like religious practice.

Read more…