I know I'm not the responsible of their lives per se, but I do believe that architecture can help modify people's behaviour, can intervene in their decisions, and can help them be happier and healthier or sick. Like deciding whether to enter a shop or not just because it has a step, or looks cozzy or expensive, or getting sick because your house is full of tiny details that are perfect places for gathering dust, you have poor lighting, little or no fresh air or almost no daylight. Architecture, and design can modify life.
Right now I'm doing an appartment building with a previous story. It was a slippers factory that was to be closed. It seems sales are not good anymore as almost anything is cheaper if imported from China. It's terrible, but nothing to be done to rescue it, so the owner thought of selling it, and a friend of his told him to change it into an appartment building. The city is making it easier to build appartments in that zone, so it was the perfect timing.
That friend of him used to be my boss, so he asked me to design the appartments. I designed differerent buildings trying to respect the structure as much as possible, as well as the client requirements and the city rules. After several projects, lots of projects if I may say, one was finally chosen, and I thought everything was over, but it wasn't.
I was asked to do the interiors, as well as the lighting design, and the selling brochures, and every little detail that comes with that.
Although I find it scaring, lighting an appartment is at the same time exciting and one of my favorite challenges. I still remember the first studio appartment I lit on my own, and how it changed my client's social life. He sent me a flower+fruit basquet as a thank you. It reminded me why I've chosen architecture in first place: I wanted to change people's lives by changing their environment... and I was able to do that through lighting design (and a bit of interior design).
I've lit up shopping malls, offices, restaurants, I've worked in Lighting design firms, and on my own, and even been in some workshops, and I found that little studio appartment in NYC the most rewarding and complex project up to now, due to the distance, the lack of budget and how happy the client became.
