Crushed by Madoff: a dream of immortality through architecture.

Arakawa and Madeline Gins believed "that people degenerate and die in part because they live in spaces that are too comfortable. The artists' solution: construct abodes that leave people disoriented, challenged and feeling anything but comfortable." But they're victims of the Bernie Madoff scam, and they've had to close up shop.

They build buildings with no doors inside. They place rooms far apart. They put windows near the ceiling or near the floor. Between rooms are sloping, bumpy moonscape-like floors designed to throw occupants off balance. These features, they argue, stimulate the body and mind, thus prolonging life. "You become like a baby," says Mr. Arakawa....

Nobutaka Yamaoka, who moved [into a Gins-designed apartement] with his wife and two children about two years ago, says he has lost more than 20 pounds and no longer suffers from hay fever, though he isn't sure whether it was cured by the loft.

There is no closet, and Mr. Yamaoka can't buy furniture for the living room or kitchen because the floor is too uneven, but he relishes the lifestyle. "I feel a completely different kind of comfort here," says the 43-year-old video director. His wife, however, complains that the apartment is too cold. Also, the window to the balcony is near the floor, and she keeps bumping her head against the frame when she crawls out to hang up laundry, he says. ("That's one of the exercises," says Ms. Gins.)

Reminds me a little of this:



Anyway, is your life too comfortable? Is your comfy home aging you a bit too rapidly? Do you need a confusing building to drag you back to the challenges of babyhood?

Financial security is also a comfort of modern life. Perhaps it too is making you old.

Arakawa and Madeline: Why don't you welcome the discomfort wrought by Bernie Madoff? Why not rejoice at the rejuvenation?

And everyone: Revel in whatever disorientation comes your way.