A design for my deferred dreams of childhood…….

I drew up this clubhouse in our backyard, and it basically became a house and this opportunity to build in real-time both the forts in our den we used to play laser tag with sheets and pillows to well, everything and anything my mind desired. My imagination and innocence seized the days and nights I thought and thought in my mind about this clubhouse. We had two rope swings, one that you used to go over the creek and one in the yard beside my huge outdoor rabbit cage. This was no ordinary clubhouse. I know the queen of Nigeria, the great Sade, would agree it was no ordinary love this love I found with design. I put in the thoughts I laid out on paper that formed into this clubhouse. There was a video game room, of course, a dining room, a living room, well it was a house I was designing.

I used my mom’s architecture digest as a reference guide. And I used my mom’s introduction she gave me about Feng shui. Feng Shui still impacts how I see and use space, along with the impact of all colors. Since learning about Feng Shui, I always think about the type of energy I let in and gave out regarding the choices I made in where I lay my thoughts and occupy with them. When I think of space and energy, I also think of relationships and how important the use of space and understanding what space can provide is essential. When I was designing that clubhouse, it was about giving each space a purpose and a unique quality so beings could be parallel to their existence both inward and outward to another being or even object. I was also highly influenced by the jetsons at that time and space. My dear teacher in grade school hoodwinked me, and it felt like only me because the class was eating the astronaut food while I was preparing for when I would go to space. So when I did not go to space and just graduated to the next grade I was mad, I am still mad. The jetsons also still stay on my mind; I have shirts with the whole family and the robot maid. I heard that DC comics did a reboot where Jane Jetson is a brilliant NASA scientist who commutes into space for work, and the son has an Asian love interest, which is beyond cool. I need to go check it out because maybe there is or will be someone who looks like me. Also, I love comics.

From time to time, I think about being in comic stores with my brother and often think about being at a Safeway with my brother in C’ville and seeing the self-check-out lanes and him telling me they will take over and cashiers will be out of jobs. He also added that a computer could not do things that only people could do. So I went through the line like a scene out of the jetsons where the machines that were manning the supply line went out of whack ( due to a sabotage plot), and only a person could help end the chaos. I mean, after all, a human-made the machines, why wouldn’t a human be needed to properly fix what went wrong, whether the cause was done by a machine or another human. I used to draw supply chains like that I saw in the Jeston movie, which later peaked when I thought about the building of their houses. But the movie has a Ferngully appeal with Mr. Jeston finding out the company is drilling into the communities. Then his moral compass finds his soul.

It is a great movie, all I thought about was architecture and space really. It led me to me doing research later in life with the Jeston movie fresh in my mind, and that is when I found Googie architecture, which was this futurist design concept that originated in southern California. The inspirations behind Googie came from car culture, jets, and the space age, starting with the Streamline Moderne arcature of the 1930s that spread across the nation until the 1970s. This makes sense because the Jetsons cartoon started in the 1960s, the first man went to space, and the first man was put on the moon in the same decade. And truly, space was not that far anymore, thanks also to science fiction novels and movie concepts. Lastly, I thought about that clubhouse, and it could be built-in space or on another planet all the time. Even with 3D printing like what Sir Norman Foster is doing with Lunar Habitation By Norman Foster and 3D printing on the moon. To quote the great Michael Stripe, he was also Captain Scrummy to me, said if you believe they put a man on the moon, well Sir Norman Foster makes me believe I could maybe live like the Jeston in between the earth and the moon or any planet I choose like using my 3d printed space car to transport back and forth.

My design in my backyard is now far, far away, and no longer mine. It never happened something about permits and zoning(JK). I was not trying to build a MCmansion, and it was not due to the most vital type of funding. My mom supported my imagination to the fullest, which is priceless. She has been doing it so long I do not know what angel investor could outdo a mother who believes in you and your beautiful mind.

I do not google people; I Googie buildings. Besides if I want to know you or something about you, I will ask you. I will ask you directly, not go to your friends, or some website, or people that live near you but do not talk to you just watch you or some guy you talked to for five minutes on that Friday that rained all day. I try to go beyond what is in front of me to see what is in it. People and houses are really not that different or buildings. If it has a good foundation, whether a person or building, you can keep it, gut out what is not needed and keep the frame and go in and rebuild and keep the essentials. Start over forget about what was there before; just focus on the core and moving on. A lot of us are in the renovation stage.

I would sure like to go on a ride through southern California on a vintage triumph motorcycle seeing the last great frontier where architecture met space, the future, jets, cars, and not look back…. at least what is left of them.

I am ready for the ride I have a few deferred dreams left that I do not want to rasin in the sun unless it shines like a good poem.

To Dan Graham, who also played a role in my love of design.