This time, I will try another “the six degree of separation” game that choosing topics from a film, a book, an innovation in technology and a food item. I choose…

• A film: “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”
• A book: “Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
• An innovation in technology: LED lights
• A food item: Pizza

As I have done last time, I want to introduce each topic at first in short.

“Mr. & Mrs. Smith”

(Image left from: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MrAndMrsSmith)

This is an American action comedy film directed by Doug Liman and witten by Simon Kinberg in 2005. It begins with an interview of “a bored married couple”, Mr. John Smith by Brad Pitt and Mrs. Jane Smith Angelina Jolie. In truth, both of them have a secret job as a spy agent and yet they do not know his or her partner is also a spy until both are assigned to kill another.

Rose for Emily

A Rose for Emily by American author William Faulkner is a short story of Miss Emily Grierson’s mysterious life and death which is viewed by several townspeople who serve as the collective narrator. It is first published in 1930. The town which is Faulkner’s fictional city, Jefferson, in his fictional county of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi.

William Faulkner’s Image from: (http://www.foothilltech.org/rgeib/english/orwell/primary_sources/faulkner.jpg)

LED lights

LED Christmas light (flickr.com)

According to 　the website of Energy Star (http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=lighting.pr_what_are#what_are), “LED stands for light-emitting diode. LEDs are small light sources that become illuminated by the movement of electrons through a semiconductor material”. LED lighting is believed that more efficient, long-lasting, versatile, and durable than other existent lightings. One can use energy and light efficiently. More people start to change their light bulbs to LED and/or Energy Star qualified lightings ever due to Green actions and saving money.

LED Video panel (flickr.com)

Pizza

Yummy Pizza (flickr.com)

Pizza is … PIZZA. Should I have to define this? Pizza is believed as an American popular food by many people worldwide including Americans themselves. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Pizza is that “an Italian dish consisting of a flat round bread base with cheese, tomatoes, vegetables, meat” and so on. Once I was said that pizza is the greatest and healthiest food ever that one can eat vegetables and meat, which human beings need, on the single piece of pizza.

To complete the game “the ‘four’ degree of Separation”, I begin with the organization Make It Right. This was created by Brad Pit to help the survivors of Hurricane Katrina at the lower 9^th ward by building housed with lower costs for them.

In Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Mr. Smith…Mr. Pit carries guns for his job to complete his task. Unlike the film, he uses construction tools to fight to wrong situations in New Orleans to make them right. I think he can be a good business man to invest new business and to get the chance.

Brad Pit

(http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/famecrawler/archive/2008/04/03/brad-pitt-on-american-idol.aspx)

A scene from the film

(http://bridalbird.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/ushouseproblem.jpg)

Mr. and Mrs. Smith own a great rich house. In New Orleans, he helps people to rebuilt their house by great architects and provide the house with lower costs. The architects design their houses based on traditional southern architecture like shot gun house, camel back house, and Creole cottage house. There are plans of architecture in Make it Right website. Architects choose the designs based on vernacular architecture due to it suits their life style and community. Paul Oliver quotes Frank Lloyd Wright’s words in Dwellings that “Folk building growing in response to actual needs, fitted into environment by people who knew no better than to fit them with native feeling”. I believe that the architects use this idea to make their home more like home they had before Hurricane Katrina, and to provide safety to protect from and prepare for disasters.

The most of houses are modernized by high quality design. Because New Orleans has own unique atmosphere, the architects might be asked to design houses to suit its environment. If a house has too ordinary like other states, or too unique comportment like the Archigram, unique character of New Orleans could be lost or illuminated. Miss Emily in Rose for Emily has kept her tradition for own and family’s sake even though the town has been developed and modernized. Because only her house and she are still in the past, people in the town see her differently and strange. It can be said in design that architecture should not be off the ordinal too much because people may feel uncomfortable to be around. It leads a question that where the midpoint of great and new design to be recognized and design for people who want to maintain their tradition and original.

left image from(www.makeitrightnola.org/)

Using new techonology to make our life better and efficient is not bad thing. Like LED light, people has recognized changing typical light to LED light can save their money. Even thought it costs at the beginning, it will be paid back. This investment is sustainable. Since people want to save money and the earth, it is a good example of use of technology.

What healthy is another question. Fully organic food is believed healthy, but it costs much higher than normal life. An egg contains good protein but it could be bad to people who are allergic to. I know some people believe that pizza as healthy food to eat vegetable and meat in a piece, but they also know that they should not each pizza too much because it has high calories.

So what makes things right? I believe that there are nothing right as a meaning as correct. If one like to paint a house all red, it is right for the person. If one wants to have a house like Archigam or vernacular architecture, it is right. I do not mean that it is right for others. Community may not want to have the red house. Neighbors may not want to live next to the vernacular house. The important task of an architect will be how one can find the midway in issues surrounding architecture. Michael Sorkin says in More or Less that “the house must respect sustainable practice…and accommodate our social and individual differences”. I believe it is true and important.

Hurricane Katrina has brought up “a problem of landscape design” according to Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley in What is a City. What will be the solution? According to the dictionary, the word right means that “morally good or acceptable”, “truth or correct as a fact”,” in a normal or good enough condition”, and so on. SO WHAT MAKE IT RIGHT?