The Bottle

There's an imposing poster of a young gap-toothed Mike Tyson flexing his biceps hanging on the wall of my gym. At the base of this oversized black and white photo are the equally menacing large white block letters that read, "Everybody’s got a plan till they get hit...” I was thinking Tyson’s quote would probably bear true for me. If I were facing Mike Tyson in a ring, my initial plan would be to run around the ring like a manic chicken for 15 rounds to try to eke out a draw. If, for some reason, I stumbled and he managed to land a punch on me, my plan would change. I’d probably fake a neck injury and motion for the stretcher with my eyes. The crowd, that would've been booing me as a coward up till that point, would go silent and suddenly feel pangs of remorse and guilt.... they would realize a human life was ruined for the sake of entertainment... and for what? the pleasure of seeing a fellow human pummel another person into a bloody pulp? 

Then I began thinking how Tyson's words ring true outside the ring as well.... especially for architects. As architects, we fancy our designs to be formed of idealistic visions and noble aspirations to change the world. But once the construction process starts, the construction site becomes a boxing ring. Architects now face a constant flow of jabs and uppercuts in the form of, cost disputes, over zealous building inspectors, and contractor deficiencies. With every hit, the architect must react with a swift bob and counter punch to find resolution.... change materials, file new drawings to the city, argue with the contractor to redo work, and so on. In essence, the execution of a building is a battle that requires a strong will and dexterity to bring a design's ideals into the real world.

When working with existing buildings, unforeseen conditions that are exposed during demolition and excavation always pack additional surprise punches and moments of re-evaluation. On the last job I worked on, a renovation and addition to an old post office to create a mental health facility, all the dirty secrets were exposed: the rotted wood joists, crumbling cornices, and deficient foundations. Each finding required a new plan of attack... underpinning existing buildings, re-roofing, extra demolition, new fiberglass cornices....  Sometimes the surprises were welcome though, like the beautiful brick arches that we ended up exposing, or the Minck Brother's glass bottle now sitting at my desk at work. I saw the distinctive bottle during excavation and dusted it off to carry it home. There were several bottles littering the site actually. They all had the name and Brooklyn Beaver Street  address on one side, and tendril-like designs on the other side. At some point 100 years ago, the site was being excavated and prepared for the existing building's foundation we were demolishing. For a period of time, the site lay like an empty pit. In that state, someone drank their beverage and threw their trash into the building site. Eventually many bottles were thrown into the pit, only to be uncovered 100 years later during demolition.  Was it one person who habitually littered the site with his bottles, or a construction worker throwing his lunch drink bottle away, or a group of people lobbing their bottles into the site simultaneously? we will never find out... but the bottle that sits neatly on my desk is an artifact of a previous boxing ring, something real in the fight for the ideal.