E-mail, Architecture, and Identity

As my last post made clear, I recently attended a family reunion out in CT.  As expected, people passed from table to table taking pictures and saying their good-byes.  Marking the era we live in, one of the other essential tasks of this evening was to send around a list for everyone to write their e-mail addresses on.  My older brother, the go to computer guy, took the list and not only sent out a mass e-mail so everyone would have everyone else's e-mail, he also invited everyone to an online genealogy database (perfect idea for a family reunion).  However, for some reason, I was one of the last to receive these correspondences, as my own brother mistakenly put down my wrong e-mail address several times.

Anyway, this led me to thinking about the several e-mail addresses I am the owner of.  Currently I have 2 gmail accounts, 2 former education accounts, and 2 work accounts, summing to a total of 6 different e-mail addresses. As I run them through my mind, I attach a certain "identity" to each of them.  My work e-mails obviously have their own attached identities - customer service Chase and architect Chase, and then their are my education accounts, which are just directed toward my personal accounts, and then, most recently, I established a new g-mail account that sounds more professional to use in non-work related yet still more professional or grown up circumstances.  Thinking individually about each e-mail, I fancy myself almost as an actor, switching from one role to the next merely by donning a new costume or, in this case an e-mail.  Each e-mail address somehow informs who I am.  Similarly, I intend to represent a certain aspect of my identity via this website, which is slightly different than the identity I portray on my LinkedIn page which is vastly different than the identity on my Facebook page.

Such a notion can be applied to spatial considerations as well.  How often do you find yourself re-arranging your furniture?  Or thinking how you would redo your kitchen?  Or maybe what color you would rather see your bedroom, or perhaps how you would landscape the yard (all these, of course, dependent on time and money)?  Why these choices, why these changes?  Perhaps this doesn't apply to you, and this is just the designer in me thinking that everyone else is the same.  Anyway... I argue that the space we occupy has an even stronger effect on our identity than the digital examples I offered previously.  Each choice made in design is a reflection or indicator of some aspect of our identity.  Is our family room stuffy, or is it mildly relaxed?  The decor indicates a certain identity you are to assume, it alludes to a certain behavior.  Why do architects yearn for an Eames chair or Barcelona stool?  Not only are they cool pieces of furniture to own, but they are symbols that portray their identity to the public (and as a reminder to themselves of who they are). Why do so many people want a McMansion as opposed to a cool California Contemporary?  It is a symbol and illustrator.  Just ask Venturi ;)

This identity-informing social psychological aspect of space is what I have discovered is my favorite research branch in architecture - why people make the choices they do (in design).  Of course, all of this has to do with culture expectations and norms.  And sometimes it gets down to the nitty gritty - why does a solid wall of red paint resonate with one person more than wainscoting and off-white paint?   And why might the opposite occur.  It's not just the psychology of the choice, it is the social psychology of our choices in a never-ending feedback loop that tell us who we are and tell others who we want to think they think we are... portraying ourselves as being... to others....

Think twice about that next gallon of paint you buy.  Why are you choosing that color, for that room?  Why are you painting (instead of... gasp... wallpaper!)

Peace out.