I’ll never forget my mom’s sad voice on the phone. “What! You’re moving into a plastic container? No better place available?”On the contrary, I was completely happy and proud of my ‘cool’ composite material space-box with its big window (except of course for its astronomical rent), and I sent enthusiastic emails to all my architecture friends: “I’m moving into a plug-in city example, just like I proposed in my final thesis project.
Delen
Some infrastructure, connect the box and there you go. Welcome to your new home!” I can’t imagine a designer who wouldn’t appreciate such a flexible concept.
So, while trying to put my mom at ease, I didn’t mind my friends teasing me: “Now that you’re already in a container, Ekim, if you misbehave it’ll be easy for TU Delft to ship you back to Istanbul, all they need is a crane to take you to Rotterdam harbour.” Or: “Since you’re a student in Holland and could use extra money, you can always start a business by sitting in your box’s shop-like window with a red light…”
While waiting to move into my place, I began hearing stories about the unhappiness of the students who were already living in these plastic cabinets. Everyone except me seemed to dislike this genius architectonic idea. What was wrong with all these ungrateful people?
Well, the answer came out a couple of weeks after I had moved to my lovely domicile. A strong feeling of isolation mixed with boredom was not easy to beat in my space-box, and I found myself constantly trying to find reasons not to stay in this rabbit-hole. Why no common room, a shared kitchen, a cozy TV room, or any place to exchange words with another human being or at least meet others getting bored just like me?
Maybe us architects aren’t as streetwise as we think we are. It’s too late to change my graduation project, which I had been so proud of for so long. But it’s definitely not too late to get out of my space-box. Which I did last week.
I’ll never forget my mom’s sad voice on the phone. “What! You’re moving into a plastic container? No better place available?”
On the contrary, I was completely happy and proud of my ‘cool’ composite material space-box with its big window (except of course for its astronomical rent), and I sent enthusiastic emails to all my architecture friends: “I’m moving into a plug-in city example, just like I proposed in my final thesis project. Some infrastructure, connect the box and there you go. Welcome to your new home!” I can’t imagine a designer who wouldn’t appreciate such a flexible concept.
So, while trying to put my mom at ease, I didn’t mind my friends teasing me: “Now that you’re already in a container, Ekim, if you misbehave it’ll be easy for TU Delft to ship you back to Istanbul, all they need is a crane to take you to Rotterdam harbour.” Or: “Since you’re a student in Holland and could use extra money, you can always start a business by sitting in your box’s shop-like window with a red light…”
While waiting to move into my place, I began hearing stories about the unhappiness of the students who were already living in these plastic cabinets. Everyone except me seemed to dislike this genius architectonic idea. What was wrong with all these ungrateful people?
Well, the answer came out a couple of weeks after I had moved to my lovely domicile. A strong feeling of isolation mixed with boredom was not easy to beat in my space-box, and I found myself constantly trying to find reasons not to stay in this rabbit-hole. Why no common room, a shared kitchen, a cozy TV room, or any place to exchange words with another human being or at least meet others getting bored just like me?
Maybe us architects aren’t as streetwise as we think we are. It’s too late to change my graduation project, which I had been so proud of for so long. But it’s definitely not too late to get out of my space-box. Which I did last week.
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