MARCH 2023 – Growing up, all you had to do was give me a pencil, an eraser, and some paper and the creativity would just pour out. Working in the design studio has shades of that, but in a much more controlled way, is hard to recapture that level of freedom. Is an interesting push pull between innovation and the constraints of designing for a world with very real costs. As once an idea attempts to leave the conceptual world of imagination to be realized in definitive space it always comes with a healthy dose of reality, haha. Being aware of that in advance is both helpful and harmful to the creative process. Given the infinite nature of creativity, having some ‘limitations’ or ‘roadblocks’ in mind can actually be quite helpful as it forces you to approach a problem from a new direction. Sort of sounds like a Bruce Lee quote, having no limitations as a limitation, but in practice it genuinely is quite helpful when you are trying to innovate.
The work I am doing in the studio this semester is multi-faceted, but one project is focused on residential architecture design and making plans for an 1,800 +/- sq/ft home. I have a list of elements that I want to include and goal targets for what to include inside as well as design features such as a super-insulated building envelope, green roof, and net zero ready building plan. At some point I’d like to try doing a design project completely with mechanical pencil and rulers versus digital design (which outside of the conceptual phase I how I do all of my design work using PC tools), like they did it in the old days. Trying to imagine what it might be like working with Frank Lloyd Wright in his design studio, ‘Taliesin West’, in Arizona. Will have to visit there one day!
Been going through this text, ‘Fundamentals of Building Construction: Materials and Methods’ by Edward Allen and Joseph Iano, that I snagged to get a background on classic building methods and fundamental principles of construction. There is so much to learn, it feels like drinking from a fire hose sometimes, haha. But I gotta be prepared for the Grand Design life in the future! Enjoying the studio time right now and it will be cool to see how this residential design shapes up. Already throwing a bunch of solar photovoltaic panels on the roof, so you know it means business!
Cheers all!
~ CS
