Why I'm Bringing General-Audience Architecture* Writing to Substack
One way to feed our intrinsic curiosity about the world is to observe, then reflect on, the physical things that surround us.
~2,500 words, a thirteen-minute read
Plans in Perspective (PinP) turns three (months) today, and I’m using the occasion to write differently. This post will be a little more personal, reflective, meandering, and a little less polished. More sleep-deprived, too. Pardon the jeans-and-t-shirt vibes. Regular PinP programming returns next week.
I’ll begin by explaining the *.
I have something of a hybrid professional background. Guess most do these days. Besides the boring details, it’s roughly gone something like this. After college in 2014, I worked as an architectural designer, primarily on posh museums, then an architect (to call oneself so, one must be licensed by the state), then I dabbled in urban planning in grad school where I spent above-average time hanging around policy folk, found extra-curricular fulfillment working with a nearby Opportunity Zone community, there designed and implemented an art wall made of chain-link fence stock (one of my prouder built works, frankly), eventually got a Fulbright grant to study decaying megastructures in Hong Kong, after that got canned by the former administration, I re-proposed going to Singapore, meanwhile Covid happened and while intl. borders were closed I worked in a small office doing urban design and planning work for tertiary cities in New England.
Borders opened, and at last I made it to this chapter. (Who knows what number it is.) Today — or I should say, tonight — I’m sitting in Singapore in a rented room on the fifth floor of a public housing apartment 10,000 miles (16,000km) from home, keeping myself awake till 4 a.m. for a zoom meeting by pondering whether it’s a good idea to brand this writing as “architecture” writing. A point of clarification, lest I be accused of complaining (which I am not, as left to my own devices I would regularly stay up till 4 anyway): the public housing flat is quite nice, actually. In a country where 80% of the population lives in architecture like this, it’s a solidly familiar and comfortable middle-class environment.
(Quickly on the subject of “brands”: the term has an uncomfortable connection to its other meaning i.e. “cattle brand”. Something to reflect on when proudly sporting all of those BRANDED clothes…are we wearing the brands or are the brands branding us?)
I’ll stick with “architecture* writing”, in part because becoming an architect was one of my prouder professional accomplishments: it takes 5,600 hours of experience, a certified degree, and six four-hour tests to become a licensed architect in most states. Why all this? Simple: life safety and public welfare. While a structural engineer makes sure a building doesn’t fall down, architects make sure people can get out of one pronto in the event of an emergency. Even in a modestly sized building, that turns out to be a complicated spatial puzzle, making sure door and stair and hallway quantities and sizes are adequate and properly connected to all the rooms. That’s just one example of a safety issue under an architects purview, there are others.
But I promised not to bore you!
Anyway, the * is typically a portal to a footnote. That’s where nuance thrives. I’m using it to mean that PinP will cover more than buildings, a reflection of my career path as an architect involved with a menagerie of interconnected issues and topics. To name a few: housing supply challenges, suburban mall redevelopment, role of academic exchange in foreign policy, the Ford Motor Company, and a big pink inflatable. Also, I once spent four months studying mysteriously vacant mega-developments Angola. Phantom Urbanism! When faced with a condition like that, how could one do anything but strive to look beyond the architecture?
So I have, let’s say, seen some stuff. It follows that the content here varies. From LED streetlight retrofits, ceremonial burn barrels, virtual public space, elevator retrofits, covered walkways, covered streets, Christopher Alexander, ha-ha walls, 1970’s shopping malls, to a spectacular atrium hotel. Here’s a hint about an article coming in October: Formula 1. If there’s a consistent theme, it’s that the process of writing them begins simply: by identifying a finite subject in the built environment. The subsequent article that emerges is the result of my running as far as I can with the topic in the time I have (usually five or six days), while trying to hold on to some semblance of order and clarity. It’s a cyclical process, and always leads to new revelations.
Keep running with me?
Not including this one, Plans and Perspective articles now add up to 24,335 words, including footnotes. I have indeed learned a lot over the past few months. About writing, and maybe a little bit about myself, too! Key takeaway? Identifying physical things as subjects and proceeding to unravel their mysteries can lead to quite a complicated string of issues. I’ll certainly never run out of topics, or string, so the question becomes how exactly to uncover the buildings and places and things that surround us? How to, as my one-liner states, sharpen our observation of the built world that surrounds us?
Enter Substack, a platform where I have full editorial control, no word limit, no image limit, and access to a growing community of fellow writers covering everything from architecture to cities to technology, to a thousand other topics. Most of them have pleasant and thoughtful comment sections too! In other words, there is all the space in the world to unpack as much nuance as an 80-hour work week and 2022 attention spans allow, with the added bonus of being in arms reach of an enormous, thriving ecosystem of online writers.
Four more reasons why I think this is a great platform for general-audience architecture* writing:
#1) Authenticity:
With full editorial control comes great responsibility, Spiderman might say, and that’s true. But those things combined unlock authenticity. This reminds me of a mildly jarring experience. A couple years ago I was invited to write an article about the housing supply problem for ArchitectureBoston. It turned out fine; it was one of the first things I wrote for a public audience, and I was a little nervous because I interviewed some big names in the industry. But all in all, I was grateful for the opportunity and the overall experience was positive.
Except for the matter of the headline.
I tend to develop articles around early drafts of their headlines, as it helps me organize thoughts and structure. In this case I had originally called the piece “Housing Supply Targets are Failing Us”.
I quickly got an abrupt introduction to the world of writing, when I learned writers frequently don’t author their own headlines. The piece ran with the (I thought) headscratch-inducing title: “Bending the Demand Curve”. I saw it for the first time right along with everyone else who clicked on it.
If you’re leaping to accuse me of holding petty grievances, know that I simply sighed, and accepted my headline fate along with the $500 stipend. But to this day if I want a good laugh at a bar, I tell the story of how an article about housing supply is forever branded with a bent demand curve, whatever the heck that is.
Incidentally — and I do not wish to wade too far into politics (I assume you read content like this to get a much-needed escape from politics once and a while) — but that experience left me with a certain sympathy for some of the mistrust of mainstream media. I read a lot — six newspapers a day sometimes — and until demandcurvegate I had no idea that the writer’s I read weren’t necessarily penning their own headlines. I’m sure the whole deal originated long ago out of some kind of Fordist production logic: specialize and optimize! But the tactic strikes me as akin to sending a letter with the right address but the wrong name. Even if received by the right person it would be a little weird. Only thing weirder would be getting mail for years somehow not knowing it was mislabeled, then finding out all at once it had someone else’s name all over it. That’s how I felt. I think. Did I mention sleep deprived?
Anyway, part of Substack’s appeal is that it facilitates a more direct relationship between readers and writers.
On a lighter note, all my headlines here are my own! So if they’re subpar or misleading, you know how to constructively let me know you think so.
#2) Community:
The lack of algorithm, low-pressure notifications, handpicked features, and perhaps a slightly more mature userbase seems to combine into a secret sauce for a terrific ensemble of communities. I’ve engaged with some great writers. Just earlier this week I read a good thought piece by Drew Austin on DALL-E. You can check it out here, and if you keep scrolling you’ll see some of the back and forth we had in the comments. I think this kind of serendipitous lateral engagement gives Substack an interesting edge over independent-style blogs like BLDGBLOG, for example, which certainly has developed a robust community in its own right over the years (it started in 2004), but is something of an island in the interwebs.
Come on over to Substack, Geoff, there are some curious characters in the pool, and there’s probably a section or two with a weird lookin thing to steer clear of (it’s the internet, after all), but for the most part people get along fine, and the water’s great, and the deep end’s getting deeper!
#3) User interface:
They nailed the UI/UX. It’s especially good at integrating images, obviously a mainstay for anyone including as many photos and drawings as I do. Overall it’s ultra clean, for readers and writers alike. Here’s what their native text editor looks like from my end — this is where I do final tweaking and proofreading:
It’s nice, like in a Modern Architecture coffee table book kind of way.
Best of all is the subscriber based financing mechanism. That means writers only incorporate ads on their own if they want to; they’re never a platform wide scourge. Most don’t anyway, including me. That’s crucial for a Substack about the sanctity of visual observation.
I might add (pun intended) that on this point I can’t help but make another jab at CityLab. Apparently, their sponsorship / partnership with Hyundai Motors was simply not lucrative enough to keep the ads from sneaking in. Yes I have an ad-blocker and yes it was on. They got through.

Alas, I should not let myself get overly hyper about lobbing judgment about urbanism media. I am, after all, just a guy. And you, reader, are certainly smart enough to be appropriately critical about what you consume, on Substack or elsewhere.
#4) Every Substack is a mini-startup, and that makes the “About” page a sales pitch:
I’ve been busy tweaking the elevator pitch for PinP, as you may have noticed by the evolving “one-liners” in the email header image. It will keep evolving, but I’d like to share with you an excerpt from the current “About” page:
Plans in Perspective is a home for general-audience, ad-free architecture writing captive to no hidden influence, trending dogma, special interest, or corporate sponsorship. Each article focuses on a built-world related subject. Anything made from plans!
Enlivened with high-quality visual content and ranging from 200 to 3,000 words, each piece may explore meanings, stories, constructs, culture, and of course the people in close orbit of the subject. These are the treasures waiting to be discovered when one simply looks beyond the physical substrate of a thing, observing the depths beyond the immediately obvious, beyond the veneer, beyond the skin deep. This, of course, is where perspective comes into play. After all, what good is a plan without perspective?!*
Newly armed with this knowledge that will pair nicely with your already boundless and curious mind, you’ll become an increasingly astute observer of how we shape the built world and how it shapes us.
* Perspective of course means “a particular attitude toward something; a way of thinking about something” (OED). But it’s also a type of architectural drawing, the kind that shows how something looks from a human point of view. Think of the classic train track example: the tracks are parallel but they look convergent. I’m an architect, so the double meaning is blatantly intentional and I love it very much.
I’ll wrap up with a final note of HUGE thanks to each of you who have been reading. Substack gives us some funny stats, and ranks subscribers from zero to five stars depending your engagement…I guess it’s how often you open the emails. So trust me, I know who you are! Thank you for making these past three months fulfilling, joyfully sleep deprived, and for letting me drop my perspective in your inbox every Thursday evening (or Friday morning in Asia).
Subscriber growth has been somewhat random but reasonably steady. If you check the homepage, you’ll see almost all posts now get about five or six “likes”, which is not too shabby in my view for an email based newsletter where most aren’t really predisposed to “liking” stuff. The homepage is becoming more and more alive!
No pressure on “liking” anything, by the way. As noted, there’s no crazy YouTube algorithm-type thing where, with enough likes I’ll somehow magically end up getting rich and balling around in a yacht yelling at each of you to SMASH THAT THUMBS UP BUTTON. If you read these and feel slightly smarter and wiser about all things architecture*, that’s the true apex of the Plans in Perspective experience, no extra clicks needed. It’s a little calmer over here at Substack, fine by me if it stays that way.
One last thing. I have this goal of hitting 1,000 subscribers by August 1. My wife is skeptical — and she’s always 100,000% right (and beautiful) — but I think there’s a chance of pulling it off! So I’ll try to make asks like this sparingly, but today’s an exception: I would be forever grateful if you shared PinP with your online or offline social networks or directly with any friends and family who would enjoy it. Feel free to copy the pitch for more context. Feel free to share this oddball article, or the homepage, or another favorite piece! My favorite is Burning in Public, but the internet’s favorite is apparently the one on covered walkways, and that one’s also good!
Let’s see if we can get to 1,000…and five posts from now I’ll let you know if we make it!
Happy observing,
—James
© 2022 James Carrico
Transparency disclosure: I do not pay Substack (it isn’t like Medium) and Substack did not compensate me or encourage me or in any way influence me on this post. I do not work for Substack, never have. Thoughts are my own. Until November, I’m funded by a Fulbright grant which primarily supports my official research work which you can learn more about here. However tempting it might be, I am contractually obligated not to have other income sources. That means that — unlike some other Substacks — nothing on PinP is paywalled for now. That may change later in the year, but that’s another ramble for another time.
Below the Line:
Buildings in the news:
One Button Could Have ‘Saved More Lives’ in Florida Condo Collapse (The New York Times)
Looking where to work remotely? Libraries could be your work-from-home haven (Business Insider)
Aging Population Ups Demand for Already Scarce Accessible Homes (Bloomberg Law)
Cities in the news:
The delivery apps reshaping life in India’s megacities (MIT Technology Review)
Plus,
In last week’s article, the most clicked-on link was the ArchDaily profile of the Skyville @ Dawson building by WOHA Architects.
This article brings the total Plans in Perspective word count to 26,860. Of those, 1,224 were by guest contributors.