One for the team!

Last week I happened to listen to a piece on the radio about the decline of team sports in America. As a mother of 3 kids, 2 of which are part of team sports, it got my attention. Aside from all the back and forth about costs, lack of interest of the kids, helicopter parenting, etc. It got me thinking that in fact there might be a greater issue at hand, something that I worry about. I fear that there is a 'flattening' of our society to what the Blue Man Group calls the 2 and 1/2 dimension.

 

As a society at this point I find we lack rigor and will to make that extra effort. Most of us will admit we do not wish to spend the effort or time driving kids to god forsaken places to get ice-time or pool time, it requires effort, planning ahead, and yes dealing with an uncomfortable option your kid may lose. We want things to be happy, crisp, clean and so very easy, which is kind of like flat coke. 

This lack of rigor, commitment and effort hold true in many fields nowadays, the one in particular I'm concerned about is the area of design. Things look very easy on HGTV and it's off shoots, places like communal painter spots which allow us all to be Picasso for a night, easy measuring apps, 9 minute pasta dishes, easy 1 click furniture shopping, you name it. We are all short for time and by way of that we forget to stop and dig deeper into things, investigate them a little, expand our knowledge, and do some of the 'dirty' redundant work that is required. 

About 6 years ago, the Tate Modern in London held a special exhibition to celebrate the 10th year anniversary of its building. I have an affinity to this building, and greatly admire the Swiss architects, Herzog De Meuron who designed it. So my disappointment when I saw the turbine hall exhibitors, was huge. Here there was a once in a life time opportunity to articulate a thoughtful artistic display, and what it ended up being was a sad display of our declining culture. The exhibitors themselves were busy on their phones/computers "connecting" via social media. They forgot to connect their display to the building or the viewers who came to experience it, it felt haphazard, and not very well put together. 

But why do these things rub me the wrong way so much? Is there a connection between the lack of rigor and discipline to poor design choices? Maybe yes, maybe no. What I do know though is that good design requires attention to details not only to plans, flashy 3D models, but also to people and their behavior, culture and language. Good design can be full of humor and thoughtful when there is an investment in liberal arts and history education, not just when it comes from a DIY kit. 

Design is a language and as one who is bilingual, and studied a third - I can earnestly say that is requires rigor, and hard work, skills that in essence can be learned while doing team sports. 

Attention to Intention

Many a times the approach to design is almost haphazard. I can't even begin to count the frantic phone calls I get from people who "just" need someone to pick their color, or help the contractor with the tiles. I usually reject these projects. Not that I think it's a bad thing to do - but like everything in life, timing is everything.

Same as you don't expect the musician to go on stage and "just" wing it with a complex musical piece, or eat at your kids "just" opened restaurant. You can't expect a designer to "just" figure it out on the spot, or fix it of for you. Design is a thoughtful and interact process. Yes is seems easy on HGTV, but have no illusion these are highly professional designers that have worked endless hours hunched over studio tables .The fact that the final results (though not always my taste) looks so easy, is all the more to their credit.

Elegant and simple solutions call for a backing of education, thoughts, ideas, experience, and a lot of listening, they don't just get pulled out of a hat. When starting the work of design a lot of effort goes into listening, and my main question would be - what's the intention? Not in a programatic practical way of - this is the entry way to the office. But in the deeper sense of what does this space mean to you and your company? Is it the place where you dump your coats in the morning, or is it the 'welcome' wagon for new employees, potential clients? Figuring out what the intention is sometimes like breaking a code of sorts. Yes there is the functionality of a space but how it reads to the people who engage in it, that is a whole other story. As a designer you need to articulate a client's intentions and many projects are lost, or become frustrating to both parties when these intentions are not made clear enough, or when there is no time to figure them out.

No corner was left unturned. Photo credit Emily Neumann 

A few years ago I worked with a super particular client who demanded a lot of attention to the seemingly minuet detail of "is it easy to clean?". It drove me crazy (and trust me I like my granite polished like a mirror all hours of the day). I mean here was a person that could certainly afford some help in cleaning. But the more I got to think about it, the more sense it made to me in a Feng-Shui kind of way. 

Her words were a call for Attention to Intention - yes getting the next glamours tile is awesome, but if it can't be cleaned properly it will look dull and tacky. Every corner of that project had to be throughly thought out, you couldn't just place a plant to hide a dust filled corner. And with a historical building in Boston, figuring out how to round the corners and make the floor level, made for an extremely intense project. Turned out to be a successful project, mainly because the intention was always communicated and thought about clearly and thoroughly.

Design by Numbers

I like watching HGTV, I really do. There is a calm that comes over me when I'm fed the easily digested  format of 3 out 3 in each and every program they put out (3 homes to pick out from, 3 tiles to choose from, 3 problems that will be solved).

                Too many choices can overwhelm            

The number 3 is a magical number in the design world; 3 vases, 3 color choices, 3 windows. I even use the number 3 trick when presenting clients options of tiles, colors, etc., it's enough to show diversity, yet not too much that it overwhelms them. Flipping through random furniture store catalogs most of the spaces have some sort of 'casual' feel to them. If you look closely, you'll notice many spaces have an odd number of pillows on the beds, an arrangement of 3 cups on table, these little things make you feel at "home".

There is the saying 'three's a crowd', so why the number 3 in design?
I don't think that there is a clear cut answer to this, I can only try and give my take on it.
From the beginning of time, there was a need to define aesthetics in a certain way, one aspect was the use of the Golden Ratio , which in very layman terms is devision of space to 1/3 and 2/3.
This creates a bit of an imbalance yet not a complete upset of space.

In the Jewdeo-Christian cultures the number 3 stars in many ways, the 3 fathers, the 3 archangels, triptych paintings at the alters. You see, we humans like things a bit messy, we like to round up some of the sharp edges of the corner. If there are only 2 vases on the fire place mantel, it will look balanced, it will look solid, static completely forgettable, and boring. We need to create a visual interest, something to draw the eye to, because if it's not balanced, we are intrigued. Any odd number would create this kind of visual upset, but most of us have small spaces and even smaller budgets.

Next time you arrange your dinning table, try putting 3 glasses of water with some flowers in them, I think the reactions you'll get will be great!

                                                Space divided into 1/3 and 2/3