Any creative person at the end of a project who looks at the result and tells us he/she is 100% satisfied with the result is a liar. No matter what, I believe that a creative project can never be finished, there is always something that could be changed, something that could be added, removed, painted, erased, enlarged, reduced… I’ve made a small book about this particular point in a project, called “moment of truth” (send me an email if you want to order a copy: sos [at] vanderarchitects [dot] com).

Even though I don’t think I’m a very particular person, I’m not that much detailed orientated, I even quite like it when things go slightly off. Andy Warhol has mentioned this kind of misunderstanding where someone by slightly misunderstanding his intentions creates a completely new direction. This happens often during construction meetings when the contractor misunderstands the intention of a drawings, detail of idea and thus creates this additional design layer in the process. That I like. No, it is not that I’m a person who is never satisfied, far from it.

In architecture the end result is obviously fixed, Wittgenstein might have moved the ceiling of his house 2 cm lower, but for most of us this is a luxury few can afford. I’ve never asked, but probably a writer has the same feeling after a book is printed. S/He might fret over and over on the main character’s opening sentence, but when holding the book in your hands it might be the cover or the font that conveys this feeling of loss. It is not the feeling of satisfaction one might expect after working hard to finish a project. No the feeling is a kind of anti-climax, a feeling of deep emptiness…

For me it sometimes is a chair that a client insist on putting in the space, or a painting, a doorknob, an umbrella stand, a plant. But I gave in, as after all it is not my space anymore. But it was mine for the last 6 or 8 months, this space, it floated in my mind, slowly forming to what it is now. Is that maybe the point? The moment of truth is a moment of loss. And the pain is pain of letting go?

via Inhabitat

Some thoughts on the process of architecture and being an architect:

On talent: not to be confused with success,
On professionalism: not a means to an end,
On motivation: self motivation, what else?
On the size of the company (I get asked this one a lot): size matters only when making love but size will not guarantee an orgasm,
On the choice of a democratic or autocratic process: there is no middle way,
On money: the ultimate art,
On competition: always deadly, whether too much or too little,
On the use of a concept: practice safe design, always use a concept,
On analogy as a source for inspiration: can be as deadly as sleeping with a rattle snake,
On beauty: architecture’s most worn-out crutch,
On integrity: do we need to choose between being a high class prostitute or a crack whore?
On effort: it always takes more,
On good or bad design: the thought itself will lead to the ugly.

Some interesting ideas on experience in the office, more here

The heads-down technical experience

Engineers who work on equipment often need to be able to work next to it. They also need to be able to easily access reference material. Some engineers need to solder.

• Equipment at the workstation, in racks, on special shelves, etc. With appropriate power and connection.

• Work surfaces for the job, such as lab-level bench, space for two computers, etc.

• Sufficient storage as appropriate for the job.

  • Local storage for immediate access.

  • Other accessible storage for longer-term items.

  • Ergonomic considerations taken into account.

• Secure equipment, either at workstation or nearby storage.

• Transport at hand as needed, such as trolley that stores under the workbench.

• Appropriately flexible phone system, eg. with wireless headset to allow talking with customers whilst walking to equipment.

The community and team experience

Although many field are in and out, they still feel a sense of community. Some people work alone and feel a sense of isolation.

Create a sense of identity

• …for individuals, workgroups and visitors.

• Distinct color scheme and lighting effects that enables immediate identification.

• Transition at boundaries that signifies movement into the identified area and gives a sense of arrival.

• Zones within overall workspace that enclose and identify groups and shared areas.

• Ability to personalize individual and group spaces.

• People magnets which draw diverse people together to share information and socialize.

  • Eg. coffee bars at copy centers with information and connectivity.

• Visual connection with others, for example lower partitions to allow people to see one another. Balanced with height for zoning and perceived privacy.

Enable shared activity

…within teams and the field.

• Team meeting spaces close to their individual workstations.

• Individual meeting space at workstation only for those with specific needs.

• Larger meeting rooms for group get-togethers.

• Noise minimization between the sounds of talking and those who have a need for quiet.

• Private space where confidential conversations can be held.

• Social space that allows serendipitous, chance conversation. Give a purpose to be there (as ‘people magnets’ above).

• Technology-enabled space with net connect at all places and PC projection in meeting rooms.

From the positivity blog:

1. "He can who thinks he can, and he can’t who thinks he can’t. This is an inexorable, indisputable law,

2. I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it,

3. Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working,

4. Action is the foundational key to all success,

5. Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not,

6. If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes,

7. Youth has no age."

A dictionary for the rest of us. A few examples:

Office Nazi: Any manager or manager wannabe that is constantly citing the rule book and forbiding fun behavior. Especially prominent in the IT industry.

"I was checking out UrbanDictionary.com when the office nazi caught me!"

Workahol: what workaholics are addicted to.

Desk: "Confucius say: Secretary not part of office furniture, unless screwed on desk"

Phone tennis: Describes a repeated failure of two people to establish verbal contact with other over the telephone, resulting in an alternating series of voicemail messages (or messages left with flatmates, etc), bouncing back and forth between the two parties.

Phone tennis: Is usually unintentional and frustrating. Though in exceptional circumstances could be used as a stalling tactic.

Most common where
1) either or both callers do not have a mobile phone
2) either or both mobiles are often switched off or unheard
3) either or both phones are often engaged
4) both caller have busy schedules
5) both callers know they are meant to have a difficult conversation but would prefer to avoid it

"I’ve been playing phone tennis with her all day, it’s getting ridiculous"

And I have added: (more to come later)

Design Victim: A design victim will decorate his or her house by the book, ie. follow the latest trends in magazines, tv shows etc… According to a design victim absolutely everything in their house should be designed: from the teapot (Alessi), to the toilet brush (Starck). The sole aim in life of the design victim is to have a magazine publish his or her interiors. Most relationships with design victims end up in divorce.

Example of a design victim’s dialogue: "Darling how many times do I have to tell you not to wear those red slippers in the bedroom, your suppose to walk bare-footed on a Karim Rashid rug!"

In 1990 while waiting for a river boat to take me into Guatamala, I played a game of chess with a Danish guy who was waiting as well. The setting could have come straight out of a Werner Herzog film, the borderpost was nothing more than a wooden hut with a covered veranda in front and a couple of gringo’s  playing chess.  Somehow, I was confusing my Danish opponent at the beginning of the game, as he kept proclaiming: " that’s an interesting move." He was a keen chess player and was very, very hard looking for patterns. Alas, I play as patternless chess as my grandmother bought shoes (sometimes too small, sometimes too big). I left him little time to remain confused, as my pattern is one of no pattern. I  think that design is somehow similar to playing chess, some see patterns while others can’t seem to find them, however hard they look.

The reason I bring this up, is that one of the award wining projects of The Great Indoors was won by Item Idem. The award went for their design of the Bernhard Willhelm flagship store in Tokyo for Bus Stop Co. The project seems to be following my chess playing pattern in their design. The jury’s report says absolutely nothing: " [the] interiors illustrate a refusal to acknowledge the existence of the immediate surroundings". (Could be said of any interior in Tokyo). I think Item Idem are trying to fabricate an anti-design, anti-pattern by creating a seemingly disorder while disorganizing the products within the space. (OK, that can be said about anything in Tokyo).

But hold on, the road here leads into two directions: a jury or a client reading something that I suspect was never intended in the first place by the one initiating it (but because the game did not have to be "played all the way" could get away with it.) And then there is the deliberate choice of selling shit as shit not unlike Piero Manzoni or Marcel Duchamp did. Nothing wrong with either approach. The video on You Tube reveals a lot of the Bernard Willem’s shopkeepers, the Japanese girls don’t understand questions in Japanese so they answer in English, but that does not matter. 

The question really is whether Item Idem consciously tried to go patternless? (Let’s call it "The Guatamala Opening Move") Or is it the jury who has been lost in the game? Not unlike my Danish opponent who was completely at lost with my anarchistic chess moves? Will we ever know? My mind goes back to that game on the sunset drenched Guatamalan riverbed which, to my shame, lasted only 15 minutes or so. But imagine our boat had arrived 5 minutes in the game, today I might be a chess legacy in Denmark.

When one thinks about architecture and methodology "architectural programming" or brief formulating" come to mind. These are the techniques for formulating a creative process. As Robert Kumlin has written an excellent book on the subject of architectural programming, so I will not touch on it here.

The creative process is only one issue of the spectrum I have in mind when using the word methodology. At Waseda I thought for six years methodology to first year students, and we looked at the various methodological ideas and systems, such as Aristotle’s method of induction, phase space or Kepler’s backflips to make mathematical relations fit natural phenomena.

What I am interested in as I write about methodology and architecture, is to see the shifts that have been taking place within the process of architecture as a system. (I have written about this in the book: eBussines and Workplace Redesign) When we talk about architecture as a system then we need to look at what is happening both within as well as at the forces outside of architecture. I believe that there have always been two, opposing forces in place: internal and external. With internal and external I don’t mean the interior and the exterior of the space, but an entangled kind of yin-yang duality that pushes the process of architecture along. And with process I mean a persistent structure or a quality that follows a Darwinian path. This stucture is an evolutionary process that modifies the hierarchical elements of architecture slowly but at certain points the structure takes on catastrophic proportions. Our main interest thus should be towards these "modifiers". The internal and external forces are what create the shifts within the system.
Even though the system will remain open ended, in itself as a methodology it is closed. It is however important to take into consideration that these internal as well as external modifiers have always been dormant within the system, there is nothing new, and as such the system is complete. The changes are taking place only in the hierarchical interrelationships within the system.

The question of architecture and methodology really is: What is driving the formulation of our spaces?

Let us for example look at Buckminster Fuller’s methodology. Here we can see how internal and external factors shape Bucky’s design, and through his 4D thinking we can see that internally his focus has been on ways to reduce materiality while creating higher structural strength, what he calls “tensegrity”. External factors are, for example, his ideas for the Wichita house where a factory assembly line that during WW2 was building bomber planes, Bucky envisioned to be changed to a house-building plant.
I will add some more examples later on, as I think this is unchartered territory. It will tell us from a historical perspective the contribution certain architects have had on the progress of architecture. I wonder whether we would be able to able to pinpoint the catastrophic shifts within the system when we map enough of these modifiers?

Britain’s commission for architecture and the built environment has created a site for 11-16 year olds to learn about the concepts of design. Using a series of questionnaires children (anyone actually) can learn the importance to balance functionality, build quality and impact. Never too young to learn.

Which places work