About
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Like it or not, we’re shaped by culture, and culture is shaped by environment, manmade or otherwise. We’ve become a mechanized world. Much of how we see our environment, how we experience our environment and even, how we’ve come to structure our environment is tempered by transportation, or in a more pure form, motion. We are truly a people in motion. On the flipside, we shape our environment, that same environment that is going to shape us. Those inventions that man has produced that bring us from Point A to Point B – physically or otherwise – have grown on us. Our dependence on transportation has grown to a point where this many people living on this planet would be hard pressed to so without transportation, or motion of some sort. Some might even go so far as to claim that our transportation devices have become so integral to our being, that they are like an outfit of clothing. That juncture between architecture, urban design and transportation is what The Babuk Report at www.babuk.com is all about. As well as a couple of other events now and again. We discuss architecture, but not in a traditional ‘brickbats and bouquets’ type of architectural review format. We look at how we relate to architecture, and how our buildings relate to us. We identify and evaluate emerging trends, based on how society chose – and worked with – trends in the past. We take a driver’s seat vantage point look at the environment, to ask where are we going? There are many blogs, they come and go. This however, is an e-newsletter. New feature stories are posted to this website frequently. Some of these stories were regular features in The Babuk Report of Chicagoland’s MetroCommuter Magazine, which was a print publication distributed at rapid transit and commuter train stations throughout the Chicago region. Until this e-news and downfall of the print media thing happened. So, don’t just sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight. Read on, and engage in some critical thinking…. Darrel Babuk was born on the prairies of western Canada. The son of a Canadian Pacific Railway Station Agent, he spent his childhood living in train stations in many different places throughout the prairies. His parentage was very Canadian; an eclectic mix of railway, clergy and military; one uncle was a Chaplain responsible for all Canadian Armed Forces personnel based in Europe, another was a decorated WW2 veteran of the Calgary Highlanders who was a colourful member of the Monarchist League of Canada. Mr. Babuk studied architecture at Montana State University attaining both Professional and Master’s degrees. While a student and despite being Canadian, he was elected nationally to be the Vice President of the American Institute of Architecture students. Taking a year away from studies to live and work at the Institute in Washington, DC, he logged more than 80,000 miles visiting architecture students throughout the US to develop supporting programs. He represented US student viewpoints and presented papers to the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the Royal Institute of British Architects. Since then, Mr. Babuk has lived in various Canadian cities and Chicago; working in architectural practices in varying capacities in all of those cities. He is the Founding Principal of Babuk & Associates in Oak Park, Illinois. He is a Licensed Architect in Illinois and Montana; he has been presented with an Award of Merit by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada for his work researching and promoting Canadian architecture in the United States. Fluent in English and conversational in French, one project of Mr. Babuk’s architectural internship was the Canadian Diplomatic Complex in Algiers. Mr. Babuk is a well known speaker on issues concerning Chicago’s architecture and railway heritage, as he is also about Canada’s architectural heritage. He has been featured in many Chicago media sources speaking to these topics, and is frequently called upon by out-of-town media for various on-air commentary that could only be described by a Canadian ex-Pat living in Chicago. In his off hours, he tinkers with old British cars, having been the proud owner of a 1977 Mini Clubman Estate and currently Chairman of the Scottish Motor Club. For more information, to contact Darrel Babuk, to enquire about architecture, or to request that he speak at a function, contact him at info(at)babuk.com |