10 THINGS ARCHITECTS COULD LEARN FROM IMPROV
1. Teamwork. One can not do it all alone. Sorry divas and Starchitects! Improv teams play well together. Each member of a scene has a purpose and asks themselves, “How can I contribute to the larger picture?” In improv, the better you make your partners look the better you look. Truth is: in improv, everyone is a supporting actor. Hmmm…
2. Play to be creative. Improv actors are trained to play… like when we were kids. If you watch kids play, they are not self conscious. They are uninhibited. They accept, extend, and advance each others play cues. They are open, curious, and laughing. To be creative, in a group setting, particularly in charrettes… if we learn to “accept” one’s ideas, then “extend” it by building on it, and lastly “advance” the idea by basing another idea off of it, we could see more fruitful results.
3. Storytelling. Good improv teams are great storytellers. Architects can learn to communicate the design problem and tell the storied solution from improv actors. After all, how does one take audience suggestions like, “reality TV,” “U2 concert,” and “Leonardo DiVinci” and make it work in a scene!?
4.Performance. Improv can help take stage fright and nerves and use them to your advantage. It will make you fearless. During presentations, own the nerves and don’t forget that every time there is a presentation there is still a need for some performance aspect. One thing I learned from doing improv is that the audience is always rooting for you to succeed. Know that… and check your zipper before hand. If the meeting goes awry, then be confident in having no idea what’s going on.
5. Be agreeable. There is a golden rule in improv called, “Yes, and…” That is, in improv, instead of being able to negate a new idea or direction your partner comes up with, you are required to agree with your partner; and then add information. Doing this takes one from being a listener to a contributor. It advances ideas and dialogue. This can be useful in design charrettes and collaborative settings.
6. Be open-minded. Improv actors can not go into a scene with a preconceived idea and wait to play it. If they do, they will miss some cues and ideas a partner may have thrown out there. And then the scene gets weird. Same goes for design.
7. Justification. In improv there are all sorts of absurdities, mistakes, and contradictions. In a good scene, the actors tie everything together and justify everything. Architects can do the same thing. There are always last minute program requirements that impact massing. We can learn to improvise the design and make sense of changes.
8. Ask questions better. Questions should give more than they take. In fact, don’t ask questions if you can avoid it. Make a statement. There is ownership in a statement. Take a position and see it through.
9. Pay attention to detail. Improv actors listen and observe everything in a scene well. Details lead to the objective. Details will lead architects in developing creative solutions as well. If we are not mindful of details, we will end up just spinning our wheels and making decisions on false pretenses.
10. No agenda for creativity. Set a time a place to be creative. In improv, it’s during a show and the stage is dark and empty. The same could be for architects. Set up a brief time and place. The time shouldn’t be more than 1-1/2 to 2 hours. After that, we lose focus. Shorter, intense meetings are better than longer disheveled meetings. Have a unique place where the creativity can happen. It should be quiet and secluded and permit creativity to occur.
via John Gresko, Project Architect | Chicago, IL, USA
Source: blink.hdrinc.com
Old and new #architecture #concrete vs #glass #modern vs #postmodern #design #structure #building #complex #macedonia #skopje #gmy #picoftheday #instamood #photooftheday (Taken with Instagram at T-Mobile Macedonia HQ)
Why Architecture’s Identity Problem Should Matter to the Rest of Us
One of the best posts I’ve ever read about architecture profession.
Perhaps it was the Legos, or watching Mike Brady belly up to his drafting board on TV. In recent months and years, the likes of President Obama, Brad Pitt, Lenny Kravitz, and numerous other public figures have divulged a love of architecture, going so far as to say they once—or still—wanted to be architects. They, like so many of us, have a romantic view of the architecture world.
It makes sense when you stop to think about it: there are few more creative, more transformative, more direct ways to literally make the world a better place. Almost nothing influences the quality of our lives more than the design of our homes, our schools, our workplaces, and our public spaces.
Architecture can enliven and inspire. Three decades ago this year, at the tender age of 21, Maya Lin, then a Yale student, captivated the nation with her minimalist design for the Vietnam Memorial. Her subsequent work has won acclaim the world over.
We need more architects like Maya Lin to lift us up. But there’s a problem: Lin is not considered an architect by the architecture profession itself. You’d think those within her chosen field would at least embrace Lin as an architect—if not as a luminary, an innovator, or even a genius. Instead, the architecture establishment does something astounding, demeaning, and perplexing: they relegate her to the title of “intern” because she focused on making architecture, rather rites of passage.
Earning a diploma from architecture school isn’t enough to be awarded the title of “architect.” Graduates must also complete a multi-year internship and pass a costly seven-part exam, steps Lin skipped because she was spending her time designing. It’s a long, arduous road that many in the field are either unable or simply unwilling to travel. Shaun Donovan, the U.S. Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, who earned his architecture degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, isn’t an architect, nor TED Prize winner and showman Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity. Architecture school deans, firm owners, and countless others aren’t “real” architects either. These people are doing amazing, world-changing work, exactly what we want and need more architects to be doing.
In fact, more than half of architecture school graduates don’t enter the profession. Fewer still get licensed, which means that the majority of the best and brightest are held in professional limbo or exit the profession entirely. This has been the status quo for decades, and it’s time for a change. We, the public, need architecture and dignifying spaces now more than ever.
Lest you think this title stuff is just semantics, think again. The profession and the public are measurably worse off because of this issue. While diversity in architecture schools is comparable to law and other fields, architecture remains one of the most elite and homogenous professions, clinging to institutional barriers that have thwarted gender parity and diversity efforts. Massive resources are spent on bureaucracy instead of nurturing a more representative profession to serve our diverse society, and supporting architects to create better, more vibrant public spaces.
Rather than spending their energy protecting their territory and titles, what if architects and their associations focused on resolving our nation’s housing crisis, improving our schools, or generally creating more inspiring environments for people to live their best lives? With buildings now accounting for almost half of greenhouse gas emissions, we need an army of architects to go back to drawing board and create more environmentally-friendly buildings, rather than an aging few tending to the drawbridge.
I’m not arguing against professional standards, especially not for a profession charged with making sure buildings don’t fall down. Clearly, there must be ways to demonstrate one’s qualifications in architecture or any other field, and an exam is widely regarded as the most reliable way to do so.
The difference is that medical school graduates are universally recognized among their peers and by the public as doctors even before their residencies and subsequent board exams. Graduates of law schools are considered lawyers even before passing the bar. But graduates of architecture school, who have at least five to seven years of schooling, are recognized with the lowly title of “intern.” They are forced into under-compensated internships as well as warned, policed, and even fined by architect-led state licensing boards for infringing on the word “architect” in any way. Is there any wonder why architecture graduates are defecting in droves?
These inequities, when combined with the economic downturn, are pushing greater numbers of graduates out of architecture, and the profession is weaker for it. More importantly, the public is also losing out, as the creative skills of architecture graduates are channeled into an overly bureaucratic process, rather than into solving very real societal challenges.
For years, even the leaders of the high and mighty American Institute of Architects have recommended reforming and broadening the rules of becoming an architect—starting with what we call graduates. Yet year in and year out, nothing changes due to institutional resistance, protectionism, and self-preservation.
It is high time that architecture focus less on enforcement of titles and fortifying its barriers to entry, and more on creating an inclusive profession truly dedicated to the health, the safety, and the welfare of the public.
Dieter Rams Ten Principles of “Good Design”
Even though it’s written in the sense of industrial design, read this post with a mind on architecture and keep in mind that all design should be started with these 10 principles
Good Design Is Innovative : The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.
Good Design Makes a Product Useful : A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product while disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.
Good Design Is Aesthetic : The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being. Only well-executed objects can be beautiful.
Good Design Makes A Product Understandable : It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user’s intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.
Good Design Is Unobtrusive : Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.
Good Design Is Honest : It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept
Good Design Is Long-lasting : It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.
Good Design Is Thorough Down to the Last Detail : Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.
Good Design Is Environmentally Friendly : Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.
Good Design Is as Little Design as Possible : Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.
German industrial designer Dieter Rams and his ten principles of “good design”. The straightforward list lays down key points, clearly stating what makes a good design. This information is a timeless source of inspiration that most any designer can appreciate.
Source: archdaily.com
Autodesk 2011 Design Visualisation Show Reel
Check out some of the best work from around the world in the design industries created with autodesk Media and Entertainment products like 3ds Max, 3ds Max Design and Maya.
Top 20 reasons to be an architect
You know those videos on youtube “how to architect“…well, the creator, Mr.Doug Patt is on Tumblr now (@nice to have you around Sir) and he wrights about (another, of many many lists around)…
…Top 20 reasons to be an architect
1. It’s a noble pursuit. It takes years of study and hard work to be a reputable professional.
2. Architecture is prodigious. It is a noun and verb, an object and action. It is ubiquitous. It’s what we make, use and admire. It is everything and nothing and we get to be a part.
3. If it motivates you, architecture involves a wide array of learning and skills: philosophy, sociology, psychology, material science, engineering, mathematics, history, construction, reading, writing, and drawing.
4. The work has a massive impact on the creator. To stand in front of a building and be the reason it exists is rewarding.
5. The impact of a building is like momentum in a sporting event. You can’t see it, but you know it’s there.
6. Architects are generally creative every day. They may not design, but they use their minds more than most.
7. Architecture is a source of fascination. It is mythologized. It makes great dinner party conversation.
8. You have the power to inspire.
9. Architects work with people. If you don’t like people there are ways to hide too.
10. Architecture keeps people safe, i.e. you keep people safe.
11. Architects are like Oz. They remain anonymous and yet provide what people need.
12. It’s a highly prized skill, not always appreciated, but quietly revered. And it’s yours forever.
13. Architects learn every day.
14. Architects take ideas and turn them into buildings.
15. If you don’t want to be an architect, but are trained as one, you can pursue all kinds of other creative professions like product design, drafting, illustration, interior design, graphic design, physical model making, virtual model making, furniture design, landscape architecture, building, etc…
15. You get to draw.
16. You get to learn how things go together, come apart, function and fail.
17. You get to immerse yourself in intellectually stimulating environments like universities where a broad range of thinking is supported, accepted and encouraged.
18. The company you keep with the living and the dead is like non-other. There’s nothing like learning from or sparring with an architect.
19. Architects make something out of nothing.
20. Architects are like great painters. They take something simple like a pear and, with paint, make it more beautiful than it actually is. Just think of a building as a functional box. Then think of how beautiful great architects make them.
Source: howtoarchitect
What do you think about my new blog design??
Since the problems with the theme cloud of Stacky5 I’ve decided to change my theme. I like minimalistic, all in place themes… so, do you like it? Should I change something?
I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies.
(via architecturesheloves)
Architecture and Building Design should serve the people that utilize, not those who design.
Source: edelynmonte
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Design School?
Do yourself a favor and READ THIS
As designers, we solve problems. Indeed, pursuing a design education is probably the first great problem we’re tasked with solving. It all starts with uncertainty and learning, moves on into hard work and refinement, and ends (ideally) with a really simple goal: becoming a designer. Staying on course and reaching that goal is no easy task — nor should it be — and a bit of guidance along the way can be a very good thing.
With that in mind, here is some advice to design students either starting, or starting back to school this autumn. Herewith, ten things (naturally!) in no particular order.
No. 1: You Can’t Learn Talent
Let’s administer the toughest pill to swallow first: talent is not an acquired skill. Thankfully, the design field is home to a variety of talents. Some people are gifted typographers, while others are more suited to illustrative endeavors. Many aren’t skilled visual craftsman at all, yet possess excellent ideas and understand how to articulate and guide others in bringing those ideas to life. The trick is to figure out what you’re good at. Sadly, despite the possibilities, some of you may have no viable penchant for design, and one only hopes that your professors have the good sense to steer you toward something more suitable. Self-reflection can help with the re-direction too, so remember to be honest — brutally honest — with yourself.
No. 2: Don’t Worry About Style
Some students have a talent for emulation, which is a particular skill that lends itself to mimicking an existing style. (Truth be told, there are many professionals who do the same.) The problem is that style often comes at the expense of an idea. So, for now:forget style. Understand the problems you’re facing, conceptualize possible solutions for them, then let the graphic conceits that emerge spring from that. Creating a body of work tethered to a particular style is a narrow path with few long-term benefits. It isn’t a very good way to keep your brain sharp, either.
No. 3: Borrow (Don’t Steal) Freely
Once you have divested yourself of the urge to imitate, it’s time to start using other people’s ideas — which is not the same as plagiarizing. (I said “use,” not “steal.”) One of the great joys of studying design comes in observing how your peers think about and solve problems — often the same problems you yourself have been assigned. You should always be open to learning about how other people think, and presenting work to your faculty and classmates is a valuable opportunity to gather input that improves upon your ideas, or dispenses with them in favor of stronger ones. Often, students are too proud to take those ideas and run with them, questioning their own confidence or fretting over a lack of ownership. (Get over it: most of you, upon graduation, won’t be executing your own ideas as a junior designer anyway.) Bear in mind, too, that when presenting your portfolio, no one will know which ideas were or weren’t fully your own to begin with.
No. 4: Consider the (Authority Of The) Source
Frequently, those same too-proud students are all too ready to receive art direction and conceptual input from their professors without questioning them. This way lies madness: after all, the very fact that you are pursuing an advanced degree suggests that you have the capacity to think for yourself, which means occasionally rejecting such input. Do yourself a favor and remember this: teachers are sometimes wrong. In fact, some of them are almost always wrong. Don’t exchange your own good judgment for questionable advice. Not sure how questionable it is? Take it to some other teachers and see what theythink. Not sure who to show? Here’s a good rule of thumb: teachers who are also practicing designers tend to be better barometers of judgment than those who teach full time (and have done so for the past few decades).
No. 5: Edit Your Own Work Judiciously
That said, there are plenty of working designers who are equally clueless. (You may even end up interning for one of them.) While real-world experience is calculable, remember that professional work should not automatically find its way into your portfolio. And while it may be difficult to fathom, the work produced during an internship might easily be inferior to your student projects. Never feel obligated to show work that is real if it’s also mediocre.
No. 6: Edit Your Own Work Really Judiciously
Another pitfall in portfolio creation is the over-inclusion of self-initiated work. And as thrilled as you were at the time you produced that Saul Bass-style-inspired movie poster based on an obscure eighteenth-century novel, do not automatically assume that this warrants inclusion in your book. Such projects are entertaining, and while they may demonstrate skill and technique, they often lack any real purpose. (This includes exercises from your Type I class and your early forays into life drawing. Less, in this case, is unquestionably more.) With no real purpose, there is no way to measure how effectively these types of projects communicate. And clients (at least the good ones) come to designers for effectiveness. So feel free to keep doing self-initiated projects, but remember to make something that actually means something, says something or solves a problem of some kind.
No. 7: There is No Freedom Without Structure
Learn about grids and use them. If your class is assigned a brochure for IBM, use their brand guidelines, and push them. If a project is too open-ended, create some constraints yourself, and abide by them. Fonts, colors, type sizes and styles: deploy these things with consideration and judgment so that they make good sense conceptually as well as formally. Or look for natural constraints within the problem itself; a label for French wine might use a typeface designed by Georges Peignot, for example. Constraints exist for a reason: use them, experiment and play with them, learn to love them. Limits, whether you like them or not, are realistic. They also create an ideal environment for the incubation of solutions that don’t rely too heavily on decoration or style.
No. 8: Change Brings Clarity
If real problems and reasonable limitations leave you struggling to think of a good concept or a way to execute it, go for a walk. Or take a shower. Sometimes the best way to think is to not think at all.
No. 9: Sleep Brings Even More Clarity
Do yourself a favor: though you may feel enormous pressure to do so, don’t pull all-nighters. For one thing, it’s bad for your health. For another, it’s better that things arecompleted, than necessarily completed perfectly. Exhaustion numbs the brain and doesn’t result in good work anyway. Get it done, get some sleep, fix it later. The word “deadline” has to be one of the great misnomers in the English language. Rarely is death ever involved, and never has it resulted in a better solution.
No. 10: Be Yourself
This last piece of advice qualifies everything you’ve read thus far. For that matter, it qualifies any advice about being a design student you’ve read or heard before now, or ever will, and here it is: Don’t attempt to conform your behavior and personality to the particularities of others. Being empathetic and open to other perspectives is important (especially when clients are concerned) but you should never subjugate your own perspective and personality simply to please others. (Even clients.) Seek help where you need it, whether it’s help spelling or kerning or public speaking. If you’re afflicted with these or other such shortcomings, seek the aid of colleagues who are not similarly afflicted. Ignore those who tell you not to waste your time watching TV: they might as well tell you to never have another beer or stop playing with your pets. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying what the pretentious among us would consider ordinary. After all, most of the people we design for are pretty ordinary. So go ahead and be ordinary. Be authentic. Be real. And above all, be yourself.
Any opinions my dear tumblrs??
(via designobserver.com)
Source: observatory.designobserver.com
new followers - new semester - new design
Lets put a little text on your dashboard. As much as I love Tumblr, it’s little plain with only the pictures when it is a blogging service. I feel people are getting little dumber this way.
So here:
In a couple of days, I’ve gained so many new followers, that I simply could’t thank all of you. I use this opportunity to say - THANK YOU ALL. Also thanks to my old followers for sticking along.
On the other topic…the new semester starts. For some of you has already started, but for most of architecture students it starts on Monday. Good luck all of you, wish you all the best.
And last, I thought that it would be cool to change my tumblog design a little. So check it out and leave replies with your thoughts.
