CREATIVITY + PROCESS + REPRESENTATION

These are two of the largest themes of this project. An attempt to better understand both - this attempt by myself and hopefully my students as well. This direction is based mostly on self critique of what I have been teaching up to this point - a heavy emphasis on craft - and drawings, mostly

CREATIVITY

I have been operating on the philosophy of "drive them as hard you can" promote a relentless work ethic - the rational being, that is through the act of "making" that we better understand "meaning." And while I still fully agree with that philosophy, the emphasis was really based in part on the fact that I really didn't feel I had an understanding of the nature of creativity.

So that is one of the main functions of this project, an attempt to understand the nature of creativity and the environment in which it thrives.

I have come to realize at the root of this whole thing is about RELATIONSHIPS. whatever anyone is talking about, they are talking about relationships. creativity is merely having the ability to understand complex relationships. there I said it. I don't think it could be more simple.

PROCESS

I really haven't been able to produce a NARRATIVE about process that I am happy with. but for now lets just all agree that it is of the utmost importance, and creativity cannot exist without process. Nothing new can be created without process. And like a newborn that comes in to the world all covered with afterburth, these blogs are MESSY, and intentionally so. We are concerned with the habitat of creativity, and it doesn't occur in states of stability.

As architects, we preach an open ended design process, why not create a project that is open-ended as well. For me, the "what this project is about" is a moving target, and hopefully, so to the students. I have told the students are in control, it is the intent to end up with a building, but it is all up to the students.

additionally, as I have stated this project is an investigation of my own, and what better way to illustrate this idea of process that to try and expose

REPRESENTATION

Is representation an act of definition? I suppose its possible to define something as indefinite - but that is a small point.

there is meaning behind this format - it is an attempt to represent process and not the finished product - eventually it will be the finished product, but right now, its in PROCESS. so like I said, its okay that things might be unfinished/unpoloshed with grammatical and spelling errors - even fragmented sentences and

lets get things on the table that are in process, that we can talk about them before we spend all this time polishing them up. It is more efficient this way.

another side of representation has to do with, how am I representing process of architecture to the students. Am I presenting it in a way that they can relate to?