Architectural Theory: Compromise or Concession

 In De Drager, Ole Bouman distinguishes his view that consideration of the architect's role, and therefore the role of ourselves, is incapacitating towards unique, special, or "good" design outcomes. Later in the movie, we're pushed to consider that maybe the roles are too numerous and that possibly this is the issue. How can we pursue a renovation, a commercial space or a master plan for a park and possibly play the same role or generate ideas from the same overarching prescriptive theory? (Avoiding consideration of overtly broad approaches like sustainability, of course).

Obviously, any argument that learning theory and utilizing it produces only objectively bad or good design outcomes would be, on either extreme, reductive. I would say that generally speaking, too big a focus on a single theory is undoubtedly detrimental, especially to young students trying to pick up the craft of design. I say this because it seems like theory-focused design revolves around a premise that one idea is objectively right and another is objectively wrong. In a similar vein, I think it's the same issue with focusing too much on building code during school; it stifles creativity if pursued too rigorously. 

We see this allot in student team projects when a few people are stubborn about their work, and there is no hierarchy to disseminate group choice. Often what occurs is teammates will compromise, saying, "well... we can have a fireplace there, but we need our bathroom here" or "fine, we can put solar panels here, but we have to use this material for our facade". Ultimately, these two examples may sound reasonable or even arbitrary with no context and, at best, maybe a little underwhelming. However, I would say that I've seen this occur on a lot of projects over many details, culminating in a mash between two people's ideas and not a cohesive one. 

The point is that maybe this lays out a metaphor for the individual's interaction between themself and the theory to which they're converting their ideas. They have chosen to work within given parameters and must progress within a premise of compromises to fulfill an objective. This disregards new ideas, intuition, aesthetics, adaptability, creativity, etc. At a particular extreme, it becomes as fun as choosing which door you're going to pick out of a standard Revit Family when the theory is all imposing. At its least agreeable, it becomes a mashup of spaces that somehow comprise your ideas within someone else's determined outcomes.