HUMAN FACTORS: SUSTAINABILITY AND HABITABILITY

Demis Roussos Bhargava

Master of Architecture (Design stream), UNSW Student ID 3108479

WORKBOOK # 13:
Outro
“See the world in green and blue… It was a beautiful day, don't let it get away”
Lyrics from ‘Beautiful Day’ by U2

Let’s see, how do I end this? It’s been almost 3 months since I left India, landed up (or rather Down)
here in Australia, beginning this Journal with very similar opening lines. How time flies when you’re
having fun! It’s been an exhausting but enjoyable three months – at work, at the Uni, and the surreal
experience of living on my own for the first time. Meeting interesting people, making interesting friends,
learning from interesting teachers… The Journal has reflected what’s been happening in those three
months, a documentation of a Journey to learn new stuff and trying to become a better person and a
better Architect (Architects aren’t really human you know, we just hide it very well); it hasn’t all been
hitting the books and the Net. So I’ve tried to relate different milestones and events in the context of
each topic – my polluting Ford (good old Henry) Festiva, the office where I work as the antithesis of a
sick building, and my boss’s cat tap dancing on my keyboard, among others. I’ve tried looking back at
the designs I’ve done and reassessing them in the context of the lectures… recognising what I’ve been
doing right, and learning what I’ve been doing wrong. I’ve tried to be honest, and I’ve tried not to be
too much of a smart aleck. Basically, I’ve tried a lot of things.

A lot of credit for this goes to the whole idea of the Journal as a weekly record of what we learn in
books as put into practice. And while the scope of the lectures has been extensive rather than intensive,
they’ve opened up avenues for learning even more. You can never learn enough, but this Journal and
these lectures have been a wonderful way of trying to. You can never try enough either.

To reiterate what I wrote in my very first journal entry: “Because Architecture is about building
something from nothing, people living and interacting with their natural/built environments. If this
creating of order from disorder doesn’t fly in the face of entropy, what does? I believe every thought
floating out of mindspace, every line drawn in virtualspace (pixels coalescing built future in murky
depths of the monitor) and every quick sketch forged in the heat of (battle) inspiration is of
consequence. Of consequence to the picture we paint on the canvas of the site, to the people who
breathe life into that picture today and in the future, and to pur planet.” I still believe this, now more
than ever. If anything, the three months between the first entry and this one have only strengthened
my belief that yes, we are doing a good job of messing the planet up, but that we are equally capable of
reversing entropy. I’ve seen people from different countries and disciplines voice concerns in class that
somehow I never expected them to have. Maybe the way to set an example is to quietly go about doing
the right things; I hope I have the Courage of my Convictions (being a bit tongue in cheek there, but
only a bit) to do the right things. I’ve really enjoyed being pushed to try, to think, and to break out of
Ennui. Now to take it further, rather than sinking back into a comfortably numb (Pink Floyd, 1979) rut.

Thank you.