GOODBYE. MAYBE...

As many of you know, over the last 20+ years I have written a column for ARCADE Magazine called sideYARD. This has been my opportunity to make some fun of the design community and address some pertinent architectural issues like: How to live with an architect, who are the top architects in TV history, what kind of glasses should designers buy, etc.

After all this time, I have gotten tired and run out of ideas so I wrote my last sideYARD installment this year and would love to share it with you. You can find it here: https://arcadenw.org/magazine/39-1-refraction

Dear Friends,

I am writing you all a heartfelt “tot ziens” (longtime Side Yarders know my Dutch roots well). After almost two decades of being ARCADE’s Side Yard columnist, it’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of cathartic and irreverent designers who have a marginal ability to write about their idiosyncratic lives.

Torch-passing typically puts me in a nostalgic mood, but what makes this particularly emotional is knowing this issue of ARCADE will be printed on real paper! As a way of saying goodbye, I thought it might be enjoyable to bring the faithful followers of ARCADE together, around the proverbial fireside, share some old sideYard yarns, but also look to the future. What is most remarkable to me about the column is that it has actually survived twenty years. Heck, it’s almost been around longer than Google.

The concept of Side Yard started in early 2003, when ARCADE put on a salon to better understand why readers were interested in our design community. I was on the organization’s board at the time, and much to our surprise, we heard overwhelmingly from our readers that they were clamoring for more humor. There was one significant issue with this: ARCHITECTS AND DESIGNERS AREN’T FUNNY!

I grew up a dyslexic, pre-medication ADHD, partially illiterate, TV-obsessed, problematic child with an intense phobia for both writing and reading. I WAS NOT A WRITER! But, as we earnestly tried to find a way to respond to our constituents, a quirky idea came to mind: I had recently been to a cocktail party and noticed how popular I was there, as an architect. I had numerous conversations about design throughout the evening and felt rather smug when I left. I must have had a few martinis during our brainstorming session because I threw out an idea to write a humorous article about architects at cocktail parties.

As terrified as I was to actually pen that article, I rationalized that our editor at the time, Kelly Rodriguez, would either reject it outright or rewrite it so I wouldn’t be publicly shamed. To my utter shock, the piece, which was called “The Best Time to Be an Architect Is at a Cocktail Party,” turned out to be kind of funny and pretty well written. Moreover, it went viral (this was back in the olden days, when it was still novel for things to go viral).

The usually stoic Kelly was jubilant and asked if I had any other funny ideas. This was an even tougher problem because ARCHITECTS AND DESIGNERS AREN’T FUNNY! I surmised that we had just published about the only humorous commentary possible about architecture. But, as I started looking more introspectively into the profession, all the quirk and weirdness quickly became obvious. Our mannerisms, language, obsessions, purchases, vacations, friends, homes, music, and films became fodder for observation and commentary.

Nevertheless, much like your average sixty-something architect who can’t open a Revit program or design with Rhino, I admit my best Side Yard days might be behind me. It’s time for younger upstarts to open the proverbial Revit model of whim and caprice, while I take my yellow tracing paper and go for an afternoon nap. Who is going to be the person to write about artificial intelligence (AI) taking over our design minds? Or about trying to buy a cool house in such an unaffordable housing context as Seattle? Or, dare I say it, the top ten best architecture songs of the twenty-first century? Yeah, sideYard needs new blood.

For those of you who want to push this old man to the side and take your stab at sideYard-style commentary, here are a few suggestions:

·????????Use your own voice, but make sure you mix irreverence and sarcasm with charm. It really helped me that the commentary was at least semi-autobiographical.

·????????Make fun of the uptight, pretentious world of design. The more uptight, the better. Yeah, it’s a small community, and you might piss off a few designers, but remember you are really only writing what everyone already knows.

·????????Rely heavily on colleagues for ideas. Many of the Side Yard articles have come from fellow architects saying, “Hey Ron, have you ever thought about _______?”

·????????Depend on your trusted ARCADE editor. Shout out to Kelly Rodriguez and Bonnie Duncan for making me sound like a real writer over the years.

So, who could have ever foreseen that sideYard would last all this time? Certainly not my sixth grade English teacher, Mr. LaCount. During the last two decades, I have had the really astounding privilege of completing close to fifty articles for this column. I guess architects and designers are funnier than we originally thought. ARCADE is in the process of digitizing all of its back issues, so I am excited that a sideYard catalog will be available, including some of my favorites: The 10 Greatest Architects in TV History, 15 Signs You May Want to Consider Retiring from Architecture, and The Idiosyncratic Life of Someone Married to an Architect Parts 1 and 2 (dedicated to my long-suffering wife, Kerry).

Well, I’ve had my fun reminiscing about this Side Yard gig, but I can’t end my goodbye here. You probably noticed that the title of this article contains a “maybe.” There’s no reason for sideYard to end just because I’ve finally run out of exposés about the quirky world of architects and designers. As with the whole sacred trust of ARCADE, I see my retirement as an opportunity for your voice and new ideas to emerge, ones that are relevant to tomorrow’s world of design. I would much rather pass this column off to other smart-ass, irreverent observers of design life than to see it evaporate with this goodbye. And if you need ideas, just give ol’ Ron a ring and wake him from his nap. How about starting with this idea? Um… Um… Um… Yeah, it’s time for me to retire…

With great warmth and respect,

Ron

*If you want to see past sideYARD columns and can’t wait for the digitizing process, please see Ron van der Veen’s LinkedIn site: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/ ron-van-der-veen-faia-leed-ap-867b8911/detail/recentactivity/posts/