Constraints inspires creativity | v. ordinary
#laterblog
Designing for the ordinary and everyday environment requires a kind of humility that comes from being flexible and adapting to the specific condition of a site. Creativity here is not in the form of some grandiose vision but in the form of adapting to the site’s constraints and in being able to come up with iterative variations within a thematic framework.
Habraken says, “In the traditional role model it is axiomatic that the creative impulse is suffocated by everyday environment's constraints. But truly creative talent is stimulated by constraints.”
At the beginning of this semester, when we had to pick a site for our graduate housing project, Professor Ulrike Heine, knowing me, suggested that we should probably opt to work with many constraints. We could have picked a site with relatively less constraints, such as in the middle of the sprawling Ravenel district, or one on an isolated hill, removed from any immediate context to inform the project. Some would say that being free of those constraints liberates you creatively. We instead chose a place that is sandwiched between the current Douthit Hills development and the adjoining parking lot - a site that probably brings with it the most constraints: severely limiting the building footprint, being framed by the neighboring development, view axes, roads, and thick vegetation; and yet is a very intuitive choice for a grad housing project. Once that decision was made, it informed a lot of later design decisions, such as maximizing individual exterior space and natural light, dispersing diversified uses in plan and section, and choreographing public engagement on the plinth, all helping to multiply the embedded potential of the site. There was still room for creativity to materialize in how we chose to address each of those site and building design considerations.
Designing for the ordinary and everyday experience doesn’t automatically mean that the design itself has to be ordinary. Negotiating with constraints perhaps helps to bring out the most innovative solutions - not innovation for innovation’s sake, but innovation tailored to a unique requirement. While an architecture of autonomy tends to be self-referential in its objecthood, an architecture made by constraints becomes more intentional, lively, dynamic and complex, and 'demands both invention and talent.'
Designing for the ordinary and everyday environment requires a kind of humility that comes from being flexible and adapting to the specific condition of a site. Creativity here is not in the form of some grandiose vision but in the form of adapting to the site’s constraints and in being able to come up with iterative variations within a thematic framework.
Habraken says, “In the traditional role model it is axiomatic that the creative impulse is suffocated by everyday environment's constraints. But truly creative talent is stimulated by constraints.”
At the beginning of this semester, when we had to pick a site for our graduate housing project, Professor Ulrike Heine, knowing me, suggested that we should probably opt to work with many constraints. We could have picked a site with relatively less constraints, such as in the middle of the sprawling Ravenel district, or one on an isolated hill, removed from any immediate context to inform the project. Some would say that being free of those constraints liberates you creatively. We instead chose a place that is sandwiched between the current Douthit Hills development and the adjoining parking lot - a site that probably brings with it the most constraints: severely limiting the building footprint, being framed by the neighboring development, view axes, roads, and thick vegetation; and yet is a very intuitive choice for a grad housing project. Once that decision was made, it informed a lot of later design decisions, such as maximizing individual exterior space and natural light, dispersing diversified uses in plan and section, and choreographing public engagement on the plinth, all helping to multiply the embedded potential of the site. There was still room for creativity to materialize in how we chose to address each of those site and building design considerations.
Designing for the ordinary and everyday experience doesn’t automatically mean that the design itself has to be ordinary. Negotiating with constraints perhaps helps to bring out the most innovative solutions - not innovation for innovation’s sake, but innovation tailored to a unique requirement. While an architecture of autonomy tends to be self-referential in its objecthood, an architecture made by constraints becomes more intentional, lively, dynamic and complex, and 'demands both invention and talent.'
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| Emphasizing scenes of the ordinary and the human | Fala Atelier |
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