Fair Use Policy for Materials on This Site

The rules for using materials from this site are very, very simple.

1.  Whatever you use, whatever you use it for, whatever you develop from it are not your "intellectual" or other property, it will now and for all time be free for use by the public, contingent on rule number 2.

2.  Whatever you use, however you use it, build it, plant it, whatever you develop from it must be photographed, copied, etc., sent to me, with location where built or used and  I'll create a web page and dedicate it to mom and  pops, who after all , are responsible for it.   I won't steal your thunder, it remains your job, your client, etc..  Just a little something for mom and pop to show their friends.

Simple - Silly, perhaps, but I'm the last of the boy scouts, and still like to believe morality and honor are a good thing.

Yes indeed, my website is one of my RoughDesigns.  While some site elements are finished, completion varies, right down to drafts.  Perfection?  Nothing is ever perfected when it comes to an architect – we can always refine a design further.

As anyone who has paid consultants to design and populate a website for your firm, it’s expensive.  Design and content creation, coupled with the constraints of coding and your web hosts capabilities, create a perfect storm of near endless tweaking.  I of course need to earn a living, and to improve upon that.  My website alas comes in third … or fifth in life’s priorities.

I choose a simple site, with a simpler site builder, provided by the site host.  It is a WYSIWYG editor, if you can use word processing software, you can author this web site.  The learning curve is about an hour to check out the few icons that aren't immediately familiar or clearly tagged.  It is also free, and I am on a limited income.  It ties me to no software / updates cycles.

I've tried others.  I've found Network Solutions to be the most stable, and I can't help but think, it's very likely that in the true tradition of coders and other all the other geeks needed to run the internet, that there are many an undocumented internet tweak that Network Solutions knows of, and use to provide better service.

I know on many a small firm, I've typed in the owners names, and am lucky if their Linked In account appears on the first two pages of search results, yet I, along with my website are on the first page of my name search.  Maybe Network Solutions does have a few old tricks it uses to help it's customers after all.

Rough Designs:

The original concept

My original idea was a pie in the sky way to link people with design opportunities too small to pay reasonable professional fees to people who want to design.  There are tens of thousands frustrated designers laboring away at "production" work, myself among them, who would happily take on a design for less than a "professional" fee.  I know the idea of working on "traditionally" uneconomical projects seems crazy to many, but it isn't to designers and artists, we do it all the time, working for far less than we should, just to feed our habits so to speak.  Nor is this “undercutting” or selling the profession short.  Small projects cannot be economically serviced anymore, a new way need be found, or the built world will not serve us.

That was a long row to hoe, and it went on a back burner as I devoted more and more time to the firm I grew with for 20 years, which morphed into my current efforts to get back to my roots, sustainable design and green buildings.  

Though, I also hope it’s at least in a small way spreading the word on sustainability initiatives and green building design that are accessible for less affluent home owners, like me.

You’ll no doubt also notice I pop in a topical response to issues in our built environment every now and then.