Trust Your Better Self

By noon, tasks have piled up to nay high and there are messagings pinging in from facebook, skype and whatsapp. Like a growing cacophony of sounds, its hard to tell what the real tune is.

Which is why I think its important to find a quieter time to layout your intended tune before the din of everyday life comes in.

Its become a ritual in the studio to do two things:

First: 1010s, where we update each other everyday at 1010. We share two things: whats my most important thing (*MIT*) for the day and if i need any of the team's time. After that, we're set and everyone is off to do their own thing.

Second: PPPs, where we share the progress, problems and plans at a project level. This happens every week on Monday morning, and from it we get 3 MITs for each project phase. This helps to guide everyone's daily 1010.

Third: We've tried for a third - quarterly reviews, annual review - but at that scale, things are less regular and the real impact of decisions in what projects you say yes or no to.

So when its past noon and there's tons of pinging messages, I trust my better self and switch them off (if its important, they'll call). Because my better self told me at the morning 1010 that there's an important tune to play for the day, so nevermind the ruckus.

Get wrong to get right

You need to get it wrong to get right. For example, instead of creating 3 design "options" in 4 days and labouring over the details, how can you make 100 design iterations in 20 minute and flush out all the bad ideas and deadends early on? Don't ask "how do I get the design right?" Instead, ask "How can I make 100 mistakes in 20 minutes and clear the way for good things to happen?? And the best way to do this is to be very clear on what kind of mistakes should happen when. Too many mistakes at the same time will make it hard to judge what the right move should be. The hypothesis is that you should be very intentional in what you're trying to get wrong. Using techniques from matte painting, here's a hypothesis for the PAL project: The first mistake to make is in organization. Make every space too small and too big and dead and wasteful so that they can eventually be right: the right proportions, the right flow, the right light. The dimensions to evaluate are 2 dimensional. The next mistake to make is in massing. How is the organization going to be shaped? Only think about form and value relationships. Don't waste time thinking about materials yet. Draw fast and let it be ugly, clunky and awkward. Diagrammatically work the plans/sections or types/assemblies with the drawing so you know that it can still work. Eventually, a big grid of doodles will emerge and you can start to sort and distill into a single image or two that work. The doodle is mixing plan and section. 3.5D of information: X/Y/Z and values. IF you get stuck, just be systematic about the permutations and combinations you can make. This is a mixture of a line and a tonal thumbnail. If you've made it this far, congrats. You are now ready to make more mistakes! Its time to get materials and details wrong. Focus on making the materials as ugly and clash as possible. Try pinks, blues, reflectives and coloured lights. Don't worry. Try textures and smears and overlays. At this point, you should be having so much fun that there should be two massing perspectives to mess up! This is a colour study. Finally, focus your efforts on getting lighting as bad as possible. After this only are you ready to develop it in 3D.

Tims Vemeer

"Tim's Vemeer" is a documentary movie about an inventor called Tim. One day, he was given a book called "Secret Knowledge" written by artist David Hockney. The book argues that the artists of the renaissance used mirrors and lenses to help develop their art. This revelation on the role of engineering in art set Tim down his quest to understand the work of Vemeer by reverse engineering a machine that could to replicate his paintings. The results are jawdropping and the uncanny success of his invention suggests that Vemeer too might have used a similar device. This is exciting because it changes one understanding of Vemeer as an artist and his art. It means that as an artist, Vemeer had to have an understanding of mechanical tooling to make such devices. It also means he would have had to understand physical phenomena such as light and optics to manipulate the image. And it would also mean he would need to understand geometric perspective to correct the optical distortions of the device. It also means the outcome is less a mystical creation coming from an inscrutible flash of inspiration. Like a surgeon, Vemeer uses this knowledge to operate on human perception but instead of the scapel and the knife, his tools become light and paint. It means that artist and is art is less shaman, more scientist. Less alchemy, more maths. Less inspiration, more process.

The magic of a spec

“If I build this, will it delight you?”

this quarter is about housekeeping! 

Is it true that large architecture is all about project management?

The ecology of Autodesk suites certainly suggest this. In the 2013 building suite celebrates their primary software, Revit. The sell of the product is its collaborative tools which allow for version control, clash detection. It is a 'coordinated and consistent model-based approach'.

Here is my frustration: underlying the model-based approach is a limited palette of techniques and components. I've found the process of modelling to be counter-intuitive to "sketching". Sitting in the cockpit of revit is like steering a lumbering behemoth.

This inspires deep envy when I contrast my revit experience to the modelling environment of Mudbox or Maya. The model tweaks and responds at a speed that flows well with the creative process.

I suspect the family-part-assembly technique will help this - if only I can figure it out! 

How to Write a Traditional Resume Without Traditional Credentials

How to Write a Traditional Resume Without Traditional Credentials

By Tiffany Mikell

So, you’re a self-directed learner (or want to be).  Congratulations, you’re beginning to understand how to teach yourself anything, anywhere.  You are not bound by a classroom or a predefined program structure or the outrageous tuition costs of most traditional institutions.  

The Difference Engineer: Fictional Narratives for Looser Lives

A critical reading of the architectural practice of r&sie through the lens of Gilles Deleuze

“In a restless moment near the end of their lives, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari revealed their sensitivity to the uncertainty within their work, which was constantly being reformulated, by asking what it means to create. While the act of creation is not a representation of something that already exists, it is also not an eruption of the uncontrolled or undefined; it is not born of pure chaos, nor does it refer to it,” Natanel Elfassy

Against Intepretation: Constructing Difference for Differance’s Sake or, “If It Ain’t Broke, Break It”

This essay is an attempt at an amoral textual simulation. It accepts the contemporary as is and does not resist simulacra but embraces it. Any alternative view, in my view, is futile. It tries to resist cynicism for a positivist projection of, in the absence of a defined agenda or manifesto, where do we go from here?

Musings on the Week

This week sees many changes: the return of gerald, the submission of TID, the wedding of Su&Ren. 

However, what stands out is a little dessert bar. Read on for: 

Letter in the Email Box: like waiting to pee
2AM Dessert Lab: agency of process

There's More to Life than Happiness

This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/theres-more-to-life-than-being-happy/266805/

China house

China house located near kings cross station in London, finally my long awaited sweet and sour pork.
Sweet and sour pork can be used as a bench mark on the influence of the Chinese population overseas, its crispy pork that's both sweet, and sour. No Chinese riddles to its name.

reflections: Life of PI

Ang Lee's Life of PI, thoughts

"I have just told you two stories. In both, the facts are the same. In both, the boat still sinks. In both, my family dies and in both I still survive. Which do you believe? " 

Two strong themes in Life of PI is that of belief and truth. It suggests that truth is separate from fact and that it is our beliefs that filter the latter into the former.

But. What is truth?

//thoughts provoked by "Photoshopped Sherman"

"Photoshopped Sherman" offers analysis in the ontological shift in the reading of Cindy Sherman's work when moved from costumes and make up (atomic manipulation) to virtual (bit) manipulation. 

//definitions

data: precursor to information and the equivalent of gibberish if not processed. over-consumption leads to confusion.
information: precursor to ideas and essential in its formation. over-consumption leads to idea constipation.
idea: infant of knowledge and  fun to play with.
knowledge: a matured idea that affects one's beliefs
beliefs: biases we accept as the only thing to be certain about.

//extracts from "the information diet"

//thoughts provoked by The Information Diet

(triggered by a reading of The Information Diet by Clay Johnson)

It's disgusting, living in this bloated state.

its hard to think when there are so many memories, opinions and situations floating in brainsoup.

how to filter without throwing out the good parts?

its like filing.

writing is essential to organize.

concentration needs to be exercised

Dear Penny

Today we were again sluggish with the drawings at the Office. This is an issue that has been nagging at our behind for a while, and it will soon bite us in said region if we don't nip it first. Attempts at marathon trudges have proven valiently useless. Perhaps a checklists of qns to guide the decision making process will be best to tame the erractic mouse clicks and useless panning. It is working between scales so fuildly that gunks me up, I suspect.

The frustration is the inablitity to help this useless tic. But even when I want to leave and say fuck this, I can't yet do that without achieving a level of success. You can only walk away from something if you get there in the first place, no? And we're not there yet. We're far from it.

A second and deeper frustration is with the futility of the task at hand. Sometimes, it feels like I am but providing a service. Always, it feels like "I did not kill 5 years of my life to end up here". Where is my faith? Hidden under a rock, no doubt. Until then, we fight for the bite-sized victories. This week, the theme is

Success with personal accountability is well. We now have a balance between flexible freedom and some structure to order a fruitful day. The distraction to purge, perhaps, might be the internet itself. The hack-and-slash information stream we get is intriguing, but I wonder at how relevent the scattershot of information I'm exposed to really is.

Today's information net included several talks by Bruce Sterling - he who is an asshole but interesting enough for everyone to overlook. He calls our age a move away from the narrative, from historical accounts. If we are moving away from that, then where are we moving to? How important is it to have a narrative shape to a story?

In Jewish culture, one takes a year long sabbatical after every nine years. This gives one time to reflect and plan for the next few steps. It is a breather to construct a narrative from what has happened and decide where to take it. It is something that I think I will do. (*note, a 6month sabbatical has been added to the Calender for the year 2016.)

"You are being urged not to stagnate in your life, but instead to take positive, direct action toward a brand-new way of living." If the stars will it, so be it: for a new way of living, one needs a new way of dressing. To the Shopping Center! What is a usable uniform for work and cycling?

Over and Out,
Goodnight and Goodluck for your morning run/yoga
,lenn
20 Feb 2012