CSI is My Tribe and CONSTRUCT is Our Pow-Wow

This year's CONSTRUCT show was especially energetic. I wasn't the only one to notice. Here's a sampling of the hijinks and social time that connected me with my people.

Specs: The Sexy Part of Architecture?

Think specs aren't the sexy part of architecture? They should be.

Strength in a veil. King's Cross Station.

I stayed in architecture, when engineering was looking awfully tempting in college, because I love working with the surfaces people touch, walk on, hear, and smell. And I discovered, later, that I love specs for the control they give me over these very senses, as people experience the finished work. If you want a sexy project, you need sexy specs.

Weekend Specifier

Here's a little retrospective of what I've been up to on the weekends.

Countdown to CONSTRUCT 2012

Paulette Salisbury shows off her special ribbon

I'm ramping up for CONSTRUCT, CSI's annual convention and trade show, which starts Tuesday in Phoenix. It's a gathering of my tribe - we communicate in our shared language, wear special regalia, and participate in traditions that seem obscure to outsiders. Many of the folks who dedicate some or all of their careers to the technical and communications sides of architecture, engineering, design and construction will be there.