Design IntelligenceS

1.            The creative process holds internal guides for a project’s development and guides an individual’s growth as well. Only by committing yourself to the authority of the work can you develop as artist/architects.

2.            Make ideas. You can get stuck in thought if you aren’t making at the same time—or—make mindlessly if making automatically. If making is simultaneous to thinking, instead of proceeding or following thought, one imbues material at hand with intelligence.

3.            A work of art is a condensation of its making. What is put into it stays there and speaks for us. Listen and converse with the intelligence in the objects you make; a conversation of reflection, conceptualization and critique.

4.            Materials, or the medium of a work, get in the way, or go between the preconceived and revealed idea. Let the materials at hand get in the way of your will. This puts one in a position for discovery.

5.            Art/Architecture is the science of the unique and unrepeatable. Form principles out of the conditions, content and forces of the situation of each project.

6.            Problem making is essential to problem solving because the definition of a problem sets in play the direction and momentum of its solution.  If given a problem, redefine it. Choose/find the problem’s specific terms and questions.

7.            Questions can undo pre-conceived choices, disrupt assumptions and turn attention away from the familiar and towards an open mind. For instance, instead of choosing, where the window should be, ask “how is the inside connected to the outside?” “where is light needed?”; “what view should be framed?”; “when can the inside draw fresh air?”

8.            The whole cannot be seen from a single point of view. Turn the problem/work inside out, upside down or come at it from literally another angle.

9.             There is a power to limits. Be responsible (able to respond) to limits.

10.            Language propels: Intelligent play with language or tectonic logic (in the case of architecture) carries more than what you intend, creating a momentum of ideas. Without being concerned with what something will be, follow the logic of the language of the work.

11.            Insight is the capacity to see the potential in things…to see where this goes. Insight = wonder + experience + recognition.  Ask yourself, what could this be?

12.            Everything is connected, somehow; from the astronomical to the metabolic. The thread of connections show the way towards the transformation and growth of an idea. Find the connections through the origins of things and the roots of its language.

13.            Abstraction clarifies the essential. Clear house.