An Anthropologist and Engineer Walk Into a Bar...

An anthropologist and engineer walk into a bar, just in time to see a server trip over a power cord, bringing the attached lamp crashing down into a nearby jukebox, which then starts blaring REM’s “End of the World as We Know It.” The end of the power cord, having been forcefully ripped out of the outlet, whips around and smacks a patron’s arm just as they were releasing a dart, causing it to fly wildly and pierce the middle of a hanging flat screen TV, ending its use-life. As the server tumbles to the floor, his tray of drinks go flying, spraying various forms of liquid libation all over several people, including the mayor who appears to have been setting up for a town hall meeting. A significant volume of spirits soaks a portable speaker the mayor had just plugged in, shorting it out. This was immediately followed by the bar’s loss of power and what then appeared to be the loss of power at several nearby buildings.

The bartender stares in horror as the fiasco unfolds, then noticing the anthropologist and engineer turns to them and says, “I guess rituals and receptacles of power don’t mix.”

And thus begins a newsletter I’m starting that will focus on the intersection of people and buildings, drawing from my experiences and backgrounds in anthropology and engineering. It is possible to understand and avoid the causes of rituals and receptacles of power not mixing, or more broadly, the misalignments that often occur between our built environment on the one hand and our social environment and needs of people on the other. But it takes a multi-disciplinary approach.

I had originally intended to title the newsletter: “An Anthropologist and Engineer Walk Into a Bar…” but LinkedIn foiled that idea with its 30-character title limit (which really ends up being less than 30 characters if you want it to fit inside the newsletter title block). So, after playing around with Copilot and bouncing some ideas off my colleague Sarah Gudeman (whose planning on launching her own newsletter; make sure to look for that) I landed on Anthro+Engineer→Bar. The title may be too clever for its own good, but since an arrow can mathematically be used as the function mapping symbol, mapping elements from one set to another (kind of like “going into” or “walking into”), I thought, What the heck, I’ll use a pseudo mathematical formula as the shorthand for the intended title.

I’ll be kicking off the newsletter (likely sometime next week) with a series of articles originating from an idea to build on Meredith Banasiak 's past references to psychologist Kurt Lewin’s equation B = f(P, E), where behavior is a function of the person and their environment. The initial article will tie Lewin’s equation to the concept of the building/occupant organism, our evolutionary history and evolutionary theory in general, as well as our health and productivity. Subsequent articles will seek to lay out some of the implications of all of this for the AEC Industry, looking at topics ranging from evolutionary mismatches, IEQ, and biophilia, to the design/construction process itself and the development of standards and rating systems like LEED v5, along with feelings of loneliness and belonging. Quantitative as well as qualitative methods will also be touched on.

The plan at this point is to release something every two weeks. While I have a fair amount of content to work with now, I’d also like to address topics others are interested in learning more about. So, let me know if you have something at the intersection of people and buildings you’d like to see touched on. I'd also enjoy coauthoring an article if any are interested. And keep an eye out for the first article that should be released sometime next week.