Hi, I'm Walt Lockley. This is my online archive, please browse around.

Most everything here is about architecture. Not the confusing academic "Arrrrchitecture" as normally discussed, but something way more practical: what actually happens between humans and their built surroundings.

If you believe people are more valuable than buildings, then the critical thing about architecture isn't how buildings look, it's what buildings do to people.

On the inside, architecture can tell you how to behave, and helps determine the quality of your everyday life. Built spaces control your physical choices, and frame your social roles and relationships. I've been working to understand this idea since I was a kid. (I had kind of an odd childhood to begin with.) By long process of elimination I found neither architects nor psychologists have good explanations for how this works, although of course they'll say they do.

On the outside, buildings have enormous potential to communicate. I believe in two ideas that went out of fashion in the United States some time around 1935: the old idea that buildings have emotionally expressive potential -- that buildings can communicate -- and, separately, the old idea that buildings should be supportive and humane to their users -- that users matter.

Thanks for stopping by. If you find something you feel strongly about, please email me. I care about getting things right, and making sense, and like hearing from you.