THE ARD ARVIN / BUILDERING.NET EXTENDED INTERVIEW

Since a rock has no apparent purpose on this earth beyond just being, it’s fair to say that climbing is the interpretation of a rock’s surface through the vehicle of the body. On the other hand, since architectural structures are created by people for specific reasons, such as shelter or bridging a body of water, buildering could well be defined as misinterpretation of architecture…or at least that’s how webmaster Ard Arvin describes the pursuit on his site, buildering.net. 

Arvin (not his real name), 33, lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he works as an electrical engineer. His site contains blog posts with videos, photo galleries, a forum, and commentary on the art of buildering. It also deals with rock climbing and parkour. Perhaps the most unique feature of buildering.net, however, is the two Google Map-based buildering guidebooks, one to the Tampa Bay area, the other to the University of British Columbia campus (the latter is a digital adaptation of a 1986 print guide). These guides let you click on individual problems and then show either a photo of someone on the architectural feature or simply give a bit of info and a difficulty rating. 

At the start of each guide is a disclaimer: “Buildering always results in serious injury and horrible death. Buildering is illegal. You will be caught, charged with trespassing, and spend years in jail,” adding that, “All media contained within this guidebook is fictional.” Regardless of the veracity of the guidebook’s content, it’s a cool piece of coding, and one that could easily be used for certain climbing areas (the kind without tree cover obscuring the problems/routes on Google Maps). “I really think this technology can revolutionize the way we think of climbing guidebooks,” says Arvin. 

To learn more about buildering, the site, and the man behind it all, we conducted an email interview with Ard Arvin. 

When did you start buildering.net, and why the .net?
In 2001. I just missed out on registering buildering.com by one week. Some kid from Las Vegas beat me to the punch. Curious as to who else would be interested in buildering, I did some research on the guy. Turned out he had a series of underground videos called The Broken, where he sat on a couch, drank beer, and told people how to hack into things. Then a few years later he started a weekly series of podcasts where he sits on a couch, drinks beer, and tells stories from a social news website he made: digg.com. Yes, buildering.com is owned by Kevin Rose.

What/who is buildering.net for?
It’s for me and the five or six readers of the site. It makes me feel like I’m contributing something to society while simultaneously breaking the law.

You talk about parkour, buildering, and even slacklining on your site...what’s the connection?
They’re fun to do and aren’t golf? I dunno, life is as exciting as you want to make it. Certain things draw me in, while others don’t. I could spout some “freedom of movement and physical expression” drivel here, but I’m just as stoked on playing dodgeball and competitive Scrabble.