When lumber became cheap, we did not need more houses. We needed better architects. The abundance of a material changes the nature of the problem — but it does not change the nature of judgment. It makes judgment more necessary, not less.
A product grows in proportion to its team's loss of confidence. Features accumulate the way rooms are added to a house that was never properly designed. Each addition is individually defensible. The accumulation becomes uninhabitable.
Complexity settles the way dust does — silently, continuously, without announcement. You don't notice until the light catches it at a particular angle. By then the habit of accumulation is well established, and clearing it feels like destruction rather than restoration.
An architectural review is not a hostile act. It is a necessary one. Buildings are inspected. Bridges are load-tested. The question is not whether something was built, but whether it deserves to stand — and whether what it has become is still what it was meant to be.
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