Notes on Practice
Updated July 2026
Over the years, I've noticed the same questions returning in different kinds of work. Sometimes they appear while designing a building. Other times while sketching, building a model, taking a photograph, writing, or simply trying to explain an idea. The medium changes, but the work itself often feels surprisingly familiar.
For a long time I thought these were separate interests. Increasingly, I think they're different expressions of the same habit. Each is a way of understanding a problem—looking at it from another angle until the important parts become clear.
Architecture taught me that most projects don't begin with a lack of ideas. They begin with incomplete understanding. Every project arrives with assumptions about what the problem is, what success looks like, and which constraints matter most. Much of the work is learning to separate those assumptions from the things that are actually true. Once that happens, the right direction often becomes much easier to recognize.
I've found the same pattern everywhere else. Whether I'm sketching, writing, taking a photograph, or helping organize a team around a project, the questions are remarkably similar. What is actually important? What has been overlooked? What belongs? What can be removed? What deserves more attention?
I've never been especially interested in having a recognizable style. I'm much more interested in work that feels appropriate to its context. The projects I admire most don't seem to be trying to impress anyone. They feel thoughtful, complete, and almost inevitable—not because every decision is obvious, but because every decision feels considered.
Over time, that's also changed the way I think about representation. I used to think of drawings, models, photographs, and writing as ways of communicating an idea. Increasingly, I think they're ways of discovering one. A sketch can reveal an idea before it's fully formed. A model can make proportions obvious in a way drawings sometimes can't. A photograph can expose relationships that disappear when you're standing in the space. Writing has a way of revealing whether I actually understand what I'm trying to say. Each medium makes different things visible.
I don't think of those as separate practices anymore. They inform one another in ways I never expected. Drawing has changed the way I photograph buildings. Photography has changed the way I look at architecture. Writing has made me more careful with ideas before I become attached to them. Each has become another way of testing, refining, and understanding the others.
I still make wrong assumptions. I still overlook things the first time through. That's part of the process. The goal isn't to arrive with the right answer. It's to understand the problem well enough that a good answer has a chance to emerge.
As far as I can tell, that's the work.