Backyard Sunset

Backyard Sunset - December 2011

Winter in Vermont brings sunsets such as this bringing our many trees to life.  I especially appreciate the subtle gradation of the fiery orange to purplish blue of the twilight sky.

As you know, or don't, I spend a lot of time admiring tree branches and their unplanned figure ground interactions with each other.  It continues to fascinate me and inform my design thinking.  

What nature gives us I share with you.

Exploring tonality_Ink washes and natural subjects

Here's some recent ink wash drawings I made over the last week or so. I recently picked up a Sumie Ink Wash brush and was enjoying trying it out on some subjects close at hand. I often am painting in full color with watercolor so working only in tones was a treat and very informative to me. With the Stones image, I found the ink wash behaved very differently on the 140 lb cold press watercolor paper than on the 90 lb drawing paper. On the heavier paper it blended so nicely and moved through the sizing in very interesting and somewhat unexpected ways.

On the lighter paper, with the Flowers,the ink wash laid more on the paper surface with a more spotty, dappled light effect. I had to layer successive wash tones atop one another to achieve a greater tonal range. But very interesting still the same. What do you think? Any suggestions?

I often believe all I need are stones, trees and water as my subject matter. The compositional and conceptual opportunities with just these three are endless and continually inspiring. I find relief not to be thinking about buildings but rather get lost in elements of the landscape such as these. I spend a lot of time designing buildings and spaces. I look to natural influences like these stones and flowers to provide respite and renewal emotionally, creatively and professionally.

Learning from the Gecko's Tail_Nature & Biomimicry

I was driving in today and was listening to this fascinating Podcast by Richard Full: Learning from the Gecko's Tail featured recently on Ted Talks. It offers a great example of applying the power of nature and natural approaches to design thinking to challenges we face, such as how to climb up walls like Gecko's. Can we do it? We sure can. Watch and see how.

Another site which is relevant is Ask Nature.Org which is a more general site tapping into this which offers a broad range of tools and resources to pursue further.

Building & Landscape Integration

I sketched this a summer or so ago. I cropped the view to show a powerful relationship between the famous covered bridge in Waitsfield and the great rock abutment which forms part of its foundation on the village side of the Mad River.

So much of our practice in Vermont relates to this diagram. We're always building and designing in relation to our landscape. It's inescapable. The river in our valley is a formative element which shapes the linear form of the village where our office is located. The covered bridge springs across it touching both sides of the river in a manner which engages and frames the landscape within the bridge abutments. The wood clapboard, shingle roof and heavy timber trusses speak of the landscape in union with the enormous boulders supporting it's structure.

Like the famous Japanese temple at Edo which is always in a state of building and re-building, this bridge is constantly being touched by craftspeople, timber framers in a continuous cycle of care going back generations. There are elements on the bridge which date back a hundred or more years and others which date back to last fall. The bridge is an example of a living system happening in time.

Organizational Ecology in the High Performance Workplace

Recently I read Workplace By Design by Franklin Becker and Fritz Steele, published in 1995 by Jossey Bass Publishers.  Organizational ecology is a pervasive theme in the book.

Frequently in high-performance building design work architects and designers find themselves looking at the big picture of how the building fits into its setting and environment, various natural and organizaitonal systems, as well inter-relationships of internal space program and building function.    Looking in this way is an ecological way of thinking.  It's also smart business and can increase competitiveness.   Also, designing within the LEED framework, whether certification is pursued, requires looking at building design from a wholistic and ecological viewpoint.   

Thus from many angles organizational ecology is an important aspect to high-performance building and workplace design.  In Workplace by Design, Organizational Ecology is defined by seeing an organization as a living organism with work processes and functions working together within a building setting and physical spaces overlaid with critical systems such as information technology,  mechanical and lighting systems.    Buildings are in themselves business resources and can and should be concieved as fundamental organizational tools to support and promote effective team work and cross discipline interactions.   

To produce high value to an organization, a building or facility must connect to and reinforce the corporate ethos, culture and ultimately it's very DNA.  Seeking a harmony of physical setting, natural resources use, work and technoloogy processes, management style intertwined with organizational philosophy and values is key to creating successful workplaces built to last.  

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Necessity is the Mother of All Invention...Creativity and Seeing the bigger picture

Necessity is the mother of all invention.  Sometimes it's good not to have enough time, not enough resources, not enough education.  A challenge or problem often times fuels creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem.  Clear limitations aid creativity.  Sometimes our best work comes after we've slept on a design problem overnight, perculating on it while resting, dreaming...stretching the mind.      

I made this fibonacci diagram to remind me of how the parts and the whole are completely interconnected in the creative process.  This roughly emulates the spiral of shells we find walking on the beach and other patterns surrounding us from nature.  

Creativity is a looping, spiraling process, starting at an initial necessary point where the answering process, the doing process is more akin to a spiral than a circle or a line.  While you often come full-circle on a design problem, i.e.  you return back to the beginning, it's not really the beginning but a widening of the curving arc which is the creative process.  The circle doesn't close on itself.  It continues to open up.  The spirt of invention is a spiral.