I don’t think you understand what I’m telling you. I’m not trying to open the door here. I’m trying to open your mind.

It’s a simple problem really. Just keep the rain off of them as they enter the building. That’s all you really need to do, right?. Hardly… This is the first impression this building will make. I’m not going to waste it. You’re not going to open the doors and just walk inside. You’re going cross this threshold into the rest of your life.

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Graphic Representations of Modernism and Postmodernism - {via - coffee with an architect }

Less is more.

Congratulations, you have officially alienated 75% of the population. Now if you can make Less cost more? You’ll knock out another 23%. The remaining 2% are married to an Architect. Clearly, your practice is off to a good start.

Reducing everything down to the purest, most elegant form is difficult, and only a truely gifted Architect can achieve that level of perfection, and that gifted Architect probably designed a glass house for a crazy lady in a robe, but she died, and now the house is a museum, and, yes, I just called Philip Johnson a crazy lady in a robe, and I think the facts will back me up on that.

What is design?

Design is about finding a balance. There’s a Japanese word for the place in between – “ma”. It’s the interval of time between two things. It’s the point in the swing of a pendulum when the object switches from an upswing to a downswing. It’s the pause just between. It’s the moment just before something happens, or changes, or becomes clear, or comes into focus. But not yet. It’s the best part of the rollercoaster, right after the climb, and just before you fall. It’s anticipation. The space between. – Ma

I think that’s where “design” is. When you design something, you start with a blank page. The options seem endless and the task can seem too complex. In fact, most of us never get past this point. But, as you look at that blank page, memories of everything you’ve done before begin to enter your mind. Everything else you’ve seen, and (more importantly) experienced begins to flood the blank page. Everything you know about the project wells up in your mind; the details, the interconnections, the opportunities, the obstacles, the patterns, and the context. Eventually, you’ll sense a change in direction about to happen. That’s when you start to draw…

Right at the moment between what you knew before you started and what you are about to learn. – Ma

Jody { coffee with an architect }

It didn’t start out this way for me.

When I was younger, I had an idea of what “Architecture” is – Architecture with a capital A. I held that idea in front of me throughout my career to serve as a guide, as I worked on my craft. To me, Great Architects were those that refined their concepts and details and forms with each new project. Occasionally, jumping forward with an innovation, but, usually building a career one client at a time, one building at a time. In school I spent hours in the library flipping through a 25 volume photographic archive of everything left in Le Corbusier’s flat files after he passed away. The volumes contained: every sketch, every construction detail, and every project. His whole life was there in light awkward drawings in pencil on translucent paper; all his failures, his incomplete thoughts, his grand gestures, his moments of pure clarity. I was amazed at the craft developed throughout a career; the gentle arc of a man’s life.

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