The beauty of process

 

Shim Grid (photo by cca)

Rigorous process often emerges as pure visual delight.  This work of art was neither designed nor intended yet the results speak volumes.  Add the dimension of willfulness and now you are really getting somewhere.  Enjoy.

Where have I been? Doing Judo?

 

Oh, such a good question.  One I have been asking myself for a couple of weeks now.  I guess I knew this would happen.  I knew that the Blog would suffer moments of drought.  This is due mostly to my nature of being a singular focus kind of fellow. 

The easy answer of course would be to say that I have been working hard but that only tells about half the story.  The other half  should probably remain unwritten, not because it is too private or personal, but that it would seem trivial and complaint ridden if I went into “where have I been”.  

The best I can do is to show you what I have been working on lately.  I have eluded to a design project I have been working on lately, and in the last 5 weeks the project has really come to life and gotten a personality of its own.  Funny how that happens.  When I am the designer of a project I tend to feel more caretakerly than I do godly.  What I mean by that is that some designers can mold and shape reality into incredibly willful images and forms.  I am thinking of people like Thom Mayne, Rem Koolhaas, (thanks Bjorni, for the spellcheck) and maybe even Renzo Piano to a lesser degree (lesser degree because I get a sense that Renzo’s work is less about personal will but a love of craft).  These people seem to have complete and total control of the design and will it into existence with whatever their super power is.  

I, however, am a nanny.  I am a shepard, coach, a hand holder.  I like to say that my process of design is much like someone doing Judo.  I assess the momentum that the design project builds and I use that momentum to nudge, and coax and massage a larger idea into clear existence.  That momentum might be existing context, client temperament, budget constraints, office personality, and a myriad of different outside cues.   I do not have that “thing” that those other have.  Maybe it’s talent, no, scratch that, it IS that I don’t have THAT kind of talent, but it is also that I do not choose to impose anything I have to say on the world.  

This is all in opposition to the greatest design lesson I have learned to date.  I was working with a very good principle in charge of design, Miltos Catamaris, at Ellenzweig Associates and he pounded home this concept.  He said, “As an architect you must impose your will on the building, or else it will design itself, and at that point you have lost control and ceased being a designer.”  If this does not sound important to you, read it again until it does, because it is.  This changed my life and I feel that I still act on this concept every day, but, what about the Judo?  Where does that come in?

I like playing with the puzzle pieces put in front of me and making something wonderful and connected, and contextual out of the pieces.  Thus design jobs like RIT happen.  I am pleased with the direction but the designer in me, two months ago, would have looked at how the job looks today and probably said, “whoever designed this wasn’t trying hard enough”.  Uhg, that makes me ill to even write but could it be the truth?  Could it be that I am simply not willful enough?  Am I letting all the other things take over and guide me instead of me guiding it?

The bigger question I must ask myself is this.  Is their a line between being contextual, and connective, and designing in an interwoven way, and compromising ones design integrity?

What do you all think out there?  I know I am just touching on these subjects lightly but I am interested in your opinion (context) so that I can reach the truth (design) in my own head.  Please use the comment function below.

Vivid Boston.

 

Rainbow panoramic (photo by cca)

 

I was on my way to meeting a friend last night and I was treated to this sight.  I will not muck it up with words.  Enjoy.

 

Vivid (photo by cca)

RIT for me

I am off to RIT for a design meeting which means I will most likely not be posting at all until Thursday sometime.  Feel free to suggest any topics you would like to chat about.  I have a couple of things brewing but I always enjoy inspiration.  I also hope to find myself a computer at RIT and post some impressions of how things are going.  I can almost guarantee a rant or two coming out of this trip.  Actually … I have one on deck already.  Stay tuned.

 

One of the fine examples of modernism at RIT (photo by cca)