“If you're an architect and you know it, clap your hands.”
Architecture is the intersection of society. Architecture can be creative beyond just the physical, transcending the walls, to unite, bridge, and connect the threads of society that work towards solving meaningful problems. To thoughtfully design a synergy that can exist between the social, political and economic realms of a community, city, country or globe. This is the study of an Architect. Defined below is a (1, 2, 3) methodology for an architect to make an impact by incorporating theses variegated facets associated with society.
ONE
Be a person first. Be an architect second. Step into your life. Don’t stand on the side lines, only as a observer. You are the citizen and the leader. The dweller and the house. The thinker that can live with this uncertainty. An active citizen amongst many, a leader amongst few. The brave architect endeavors to be unnamed and uncategorized, not labeled, no limits…. strive to protect your anonymity, it’s the most quiet space and the incubation of creative ideas. Resort to a no-name attitude, just sort-of suspended in space, and that forces you to make decisions that can impact the greater part of humanity. Define, distinguish and analyze needs and desires of the inhabitants that surround you. Observe them closely, you will find your inspiration for real innovation in the questions that appear through the immediate environment. Make your choices, make your decisions that will impact design on both a physical and intangible way. Let recognition come from your ability to surrender to our collective greater good. Nobody can recognize you as an architect. We are all architects the moment we are born. Creating shelter is a primal instinct. We know it innately. Making a home for ourselves, establishing urban proximity to our social and professional lives. We chart, analyze and implement the trajectory of our futures as a program to live out our needs and desires. People are the architects of their lives. This is a deep architectural practice.
TWO
Own your three dimensional mind. Experiment with architectural tools and a diverse vernacular as two elements that are synchronized to create architectural concepts. Own it with your hands, your eye and mind. Be versatile, flexible and critical. Be firm and courageous in the creative process. An understanding to construct within the ambiguity and uncertainty of fluid space. Develop a critical mind for both making and reading drawings, models and analysis to direct the impact of use and its inhabitants. Form is inevitably a result of any three-dimensional project, but never obsess. Take architecture beyond objectification. Recognize the important threads of architecture that impact the fabric of society. Know that this world is always seeking and never finite in the pursuit of creating architecture. Architecture gives a special generative power while moving from concept to realization. Go beyond the physical, beyond the learned, beyond the present moment. Buildings are not an end in themselves, they are a means to an end.
THREE
You have to build something. You have to get up pick up a shovel or tool and dig for your ideas, literally. Dig, dig, dig and learn it through your muscles, your body, your sweat, your breath and heart beating in your chest. You have to put your body into it. It’s a critical internal measure. It’s a different learned knowledge and it is mandatory. This is a one-to- one experience. This is the optimal scale of the architect. It is where the questions of design, implementation and construction reveal themselves. You must be physically in touch with your body because there is a critical transfer of intuitive knowledge that is released that is stored in our bodies. Test materials with the connection to your own body. Innately know the strength of materiality, steel, wood, concrete, stone, the array of engineered products and the way they acts with gravity, climate, earth and context. You have to spend time doing it and build relationships with the present people making the building. It’s not just the thought process, the intellectualizing, it is, equally, about how to execute physically demanding work. You are understanding on-the-ground methodologies so that you can innovate with knowledge, respect, efficiency and responsibly to integrate construction into the design process. Ultimately, building a symbiotic bridge between design and implementation.