Collective Individuality

April 5, 2007 at 2:35 pm · Filed under Visual Arts

What happens when groups of people come together to design a project, each wearing their own “black cape?”

How do we solidify, or more specifically aestheticize an architectural project that objectively wants to be of one persons hand, but fundamentally needs to have input from groups of individuals?

We are forced to broach this topic as our field and consultants become inherently more collective in nature, and projects become larger and more complex. Solutions can’t be pinned back to one “big idea”, but flounder if not given some type of criteria to fall back on. We consistently look for the big idea (conceptually), but quickly realize that we can’t really articulate it without a 5 minute monologue, and consequently are embarrassed that projects addressing multiple scales, economies, and other vectors can’t be tied up with a single bow. Why?

The benefit of the big idea is that it gives us a way to collectively solve a design problem, but it is too broad and non specific.  But who comes up with the big idea? One person? What if it sucks? It is an exclusive, rather than inclusive practice of problem solving, and one that leaves too much wiggle room when the rubber meets the road. Complex problems have a need to be resolved as sets of organizations in concert with one another. How we strategize and delegate those parameters, under the umbrella of a fluid and evolving attitude relative the project, can be a better way of approaching design problem that would accommodate multiple mindsets.

Some thought has gone into what that process could potentially look like, and put into a graphic format, but it is still is in flux to a certain degree. See what you think…

MS

Conceptual Pipeline

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