When the strikingly different City Council candidate Thomas Small was introduced to the community three months ago, it was written that he was perched beneath an intellectual wing span that is global.
A devotee of the fine arts, he is treading a dual career path that occupies “an unusual, kind of wonderful niche.
“I am a writer who works with architects,” Mr. Small said. “I help architects to describe and to explain their approach and their philosophy about their projects,” advocating for their designs and visions.
He can play it straight, too, when called upon.
“I have done a fair amount of architectural journalism, though not as much in recent years,” Mr. Small said.
Calling it a separate career, one dominant distinction is that “you are completely neutral. You are not promoting anything.
“I have written quite a bit in that vein, particularly about sustainable design. I have made a number of presentations at international conferences, largely on sustainable design.”
Although the contemporary interest in sustainable design can be traced back 20 years, Mr. Small brings a wider historic perspective.
“It has grown tremendously in importance in the last decade,” he says. “There was certainly a surge of interest in sustainable design in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The great architect Buckminster Fuller was involved in that.
“Then it kind of waned at the end of the ‘70s, into the ‘80s and ‘90s. It started to come back in the mid-‘90s.”
What is sustainable design?
“Many definitions,” Mr. Small said. “One of the better ones involves the concept of designing to meet the needs of the occupants and users of a building or a city today – also the needs of future users.”
When Mr. Small was asked where he derives his greatest satisfaction from in his work, “I love cities,” he said. “I love the quality of life that is offered in the diversity and the collisions that happen between people in communities, in cities.”
Looking his inquisitor in the eye, Mr. Small’s dedication to his career was written large in his words.
(To be continued)
