The World Needs More Architects
The Benefits of Rethinking our Structures
Hello from Morningside Heights!
In every kitchen, each appliance solves a specific problem of everyday life, and the architect’s role is to determine how to arrange those appliances optimally in space. Similarly, while every house in a neighborhood provides an interface between “indoors” and “outdoors,” it is the urban architect who defines the contours of the neighborhood, and how these homes should interact and be positioned relative to one another. In the realm of software, each module addresses a distinct issue, but it is the system architect who orchestrates how these modules tie together. Historically, figures like Baron Haussmann have architected cities such as Paris at a macro level to beautiful effect, an approach echoed more recently in theme parks such as Disneyland. But even as higher-level architectural thinking can be transformative, it remains underutilized in defining our daily interactions with the world.
All too often, we default to the most obvious solution present in the next level of our understanding: “Let’s make our chairs four-legged.” “Let’s make our cars — and our houses — boxes.” “Let’s design our city blocks as squares.”
And while these ideas changed the world when they were new, today they restrict our ability to learn, as we miss out on bolder, better-aimed forays into the unknown. Instead, we should always strive to give our best, maximally informative guess at what things one layer of abstraction up should look like, in order to learn at the fastest rate. So let’s rely more on architects. Let’s level up.
.