A Response to "Prove It" and "Counting (on) Change Property"

Prove It

It used to be that people would flock to the cities to find jobs and work, but as technology grows the need to live and work in the same city is no longer needed.  People can now live in the suburbs and commute into the cities by automobile and public transportation.  Boston is a great example of this, because the MBTA runs deep into the suburbs connecting the smaller towns to the big city.  Another way that living in the suburbs has become easier is the fact that companies and jobs have moved to the suburbs and rural settings.  For example my family and I live in the “City” of South Portland, Maine.  The “City” is more like a town, because it’s not nearly as big as major cities in the United States.  Instead of commuting into the City of Portland, my dad travels 20 minutes in the opposite direction to the town of Gray, where his office building is the only office building for about a mile or two. 

Counting (on) Change Property

What I gathered out of this reading is that architects and planners need to start thinking about the as a whole and how it will be used in the future and leave most of the conceptual thinking of buildings behind.  Yes, we still need to take into consideration the wants and needs of the client, but we have to think about how the space will be used for people in the future and the economics of the building.  How much is it going to cost the client and how much will it cost the client to keep up with the maintenance of the building?  Over this past summer I shadowed in architect and when he and his team began to select materials for the project they were doing on a local highs school, they thought about what materials would wear slower and which would cost the school department less in the long run.  During one of the meetings I attended we talked about the cost and maintenance of VCT versus rubber tiles.  In the long run the rubber tiles would be more cost effective and would last longer than the VCT.