Whether railroads or electricity or the Internet, there is always some sense that this is the new, redemptive platform - that finally, finally, we've found the platform that will allow us all to lead a democratic, global existence, where all problems will be solved. And the idea that the old platform becomes obsolete, "this kills that," and so on, also often accompanies the advent of a new technology. The digital platform is no exception.

It wasn't an architect who did this, but if it had been an architect, it would have been a good day's work: there was a marketing person who convinced Walmart that their products sold better in daylight than electric light. It would have been interesting if an architect had deliberately designed this change with all its spatial consequences in mind, thinking about how the change would multiply across all the square footage of all the roofs of all the Walmarts in the world. It would have been a beautiful trick - a physical, practical, political pleasure.

There is a comfort with design that may be a detail, rather than a building; comfort with form that is time-released and never finished. How do you represent an instruction set that will play out in time? There may be slightly different kinds of documents for representing those forms, and different skills for advocating change outside of our fee-for-service habits.

Few would look at a concrete highway system or an electrical grid and perceive agency in their static arrangement, spaces and urban arrangements are usually treated as collections of objects or volumes, not as actors. Yet the organization itself is active. It is doing something.

Whether railroads or electricity or the Internet, there is always some sense that this is the new, redemptive platform - that finally, finally, we've found the platform that will allow us all to lead a democratic, global existence, where all problems will be solved. And the idea that the old platform becomes obsolete, "this kills that," and so on, also often accompanies the advent of a new technology. The digital platform is no exception.

In architecture, to do anything beyond object form is often treated as something extra-disciplinary - something outside the discipline that has nothing to do with art. So I'm making it clear that this is an artistic choice. It's not everyone's artistic choice. Some people should choose only to make object form because that's what gives them pleasure. But there are people for whom aesthetic pleasure comes from doing something else, and why would you deny that choice? It's another autonomous choice.

I thought architecture would offer a mix of the artful and practical. It seemed cooler than some of the other options in the university. The lights were on in the architecture school when I got out of rehearsal at night. And I thought the men were handsome.