His explanation\u2014that design is what makes a thing \u201ccool\u201d\u2014gave me pause. It sounded at once too simple and too broad. What\u2019s cool to you may not be cool to me. \u201cSay more,\u201d I pressed. Eric then offered a more philosophical perspective that stuck with me: Design is what takes something from merely functional to intentionally experienced.<\/p>\n
Most things technically work. A chair holds you. A car gets you from point A to point B. But the job of a designer<\/a> is to think through every step in the process\u2014each moment someone might interact with a space or object\u2014and shape it so naturally that you find yourself saying, \u201cThey\u2019ve thought of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Design makes you notice the existence of something, sparks a thought, feeling, or a discussion\u2014good or bad, but not indifferent. <\/p>\n I\u2019m thinking a lot about it right now because, obviously, this issue is about home and design<\/a> in San Diego, including architecture, interiors, and landscape, as well as the people who think deeply about how spaces feel and how our lives move through them.<\/p>\n But also because, after seven years in Ocean Beach<\/a>, Troy and I have started talking about moving to the suburbs to be closer to his daughter, my stepdaughter. What began as a quiet, hypothetical life conversation slowly changed how I see everything around me. <\/p>\n When you start imagining leaving a place\u2014even as a dreamy exercise\u2014you begin to notice the details that define it. Your senses become oddly hyper-aware of the defining structures and gathering places you\u2019ve traveled a bazillion times. The chipped corner of the sidewalk you instinctively hop over. The light glittering through the palms at golden hour. The graffitied park bench that normally doesn\u2019t earn a second glance because it somehow has the best view in the neighborhood. The awareness is Dorothy opening the door of Auntie Em\u2019s black-and-white house and stepping into a world of Technicolor. <\/p>\n In pausing to consider those details, the idea of home expands. The imagining of elsewhere snaps you out of the autopilot of a place. A house stops being just a house and becomes the place you want your mornings to begin and your evenings to unfold. It\u2019s the neighborhood<\/a> and who you want to bump into while running errands in your old Target slippers and avocado-stained T-shirt pulled straight from the floor. It\u2019s the kind of community you want to be part of\u2014the kind of community<\/a> you want to help build.<\/p>\n In reimagining your life elsewhere, you start to realize home isn\u2019t a place. It\u2019s a system of belonging.<\/p>\n But you can\u2019t click your heels three times and build belonging. It doesn\u2019t happen immediately or by accident. It\u2019s built over time\u2014piece by piece, interaction by interaction, choice by choice. The best parts of belonging feel accidental. Running into a neighbor at the grocery store. Kids from three different houses having a serendipitous gathering for pizza in someone\u2019s driveway. <\/p>\n Such moments look spontaneous, but they rarely are. They happen because places like rooms<\/a>, buildings, parks, neighborhoods\u2014and, yes, driveways\u2014have been designed to foster them. Because someone, somewhere, designed for connection. For, as Weiss says, intentional experience.<\/p>\n That\u2019s how you give meaning and context to a purely functional thing. Community, in its own quiet way, redesigns the space. When Troy and I talk about moving, what we\u2019re really talking about is redesigning our life. Choosing, with intention, a different starting and ending point each day. <\/p>\n Ultimately, design asks of us\u2014not just architects or planners but all of us\u2014to care about the details. To notice the spaces we move through every day. To invest in making them a little more thoughtful, a little more welcoming, a little more alive. <\/p>\n PARTNER CONTENT<\/p>\n That\u2019s what we hope this issue helps inspire. Writer Ingrid Yang explores how millions are designing their homes around wellness. Some of the city\u2019s top architects and designers point to the biggest trends they\u2019re seeing\u2014from undoing coastal clich\u00e9s and the death of the farmhouse to turning the great outdoors<\/a> into adjunct living rooms<\/a>. Troy writes a tribute to and obit for Horton Plaza, the world\u2019s most frustrating mall\u2014an intentional experience, thanks to Ray Bradbury\u2014that put San Diego at the international epicenter of pop art, design, punk, architecture, and capitalism.<\/p>\n If any of these stories give you a deeper understanding of home or illuminate what\u2019s special about the spaces you inhabit\u2026well, that would be very cool indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s what makes everything cool.\u201d That\u2019s how Eric Weiss explained it. We talked over coffee a few weeks…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":692147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,56383,3549,289900,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-692146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-editors-note","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-home-design","tag-sandiego","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116317493066001670","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n ![\"Inside](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/24_SWC_SeaWorldRescue_InsighLook_IMG_1519-300x200.jpg.webp.webp\")
\n Inside SeaWorld San Diego\u2019s Mission of Education and Cons…
\n <\/a><\/p>\n
\n ![\"Liberty](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/liberty-public-market-exterior-300x200.jpg.webp.webp\")
\n Liberty Public Market Celebrates 10 Years
\n <\/a><\/p>\n