Values
Recently, among friends, I was unable to answer a simple question, “What are your company values?” It made me realize that while I had defined goals and operating procedures the values of the company, that would contribute to the atmosphere and mentality of employees, had not been considered.
After a few seconds, or minutes, the answers came to me realizing that they had taken shape in a previous post and exist each time I talked about lessons learned from Finnegan’s Wake.
1. To not fear the unknown or failure.
2. To demand active participation.
3. To value the “What” in addition to the “How”
These values, while broad, begin to encompass my beliefs about the design process.
To not fear the unknown or failure – speaks, again, to the lessons learned during my thesis and the experiences HCE has but more importantly reminds employees that design is an exploration of the unknown and that enviably you will fail. But as designers you must love the exploration of the unknown, you must accept failure as a learning experience, and you must recognize that the design process is one of collaboration, communication, and acknowledgment of what you do not know in the pursuit of more.
To demand active participation – something Joyce did in his novel. Speaks to a higher level of accountability and involvement which is required by all parties involved in the process, from the junior on the project to the general contractor all parties must work together as a team, actively, to execute a successful project. Active-participation also supports the iterative design process, and the first value, used in our studio. For us, design, and its creation is not a linear process and a singular endeavor, it is iterative. Working through multiple iterations of the same concept, deconstruction, and reconstruction design principles, pulling the success and failures out of iterations to merge, remerge, fail, fail again, and then finally arrive at a design which best suits the needs of our clients. This process requires the active participation of those involved on all fronts to continually produce and reproduce work, modify, and edit spaces according to human interpretation and perception of space. Frankly put “to demand active-participation” is to expect more, to hold all parties accountable, and to strive for a higher level of design and project execution.
To value the “What” in addition to the “How” – the more abstract yet most important value. In Finnegan’s Wake James Joyce turned centuries of literary tradition upside down, deciding not to write a linear text but instead a special one. Focusing not on “What does this mean” but instead on “How does this work?” hoping that readers would dive into his book, be active participants, not fear the unknown, and would discover new meaning through the spatial text he rigorously created.
Everyone, without much effort, can think of multiple books, movies, comics, that exist in a linear format with strong thematic principles that progress through the hero's journey. i.e., the Lion King, Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Wizard of Oz, The Odyssey, The Man Who Would Be King, Momo, and The Hobbit to name a few.
These examples, while impressive and teach us valuable lessons, do not demand-active participation to uncover their meaning. A passive or casual reader can pick up the book, or watch the movie, and understand the core message of the author without much effort due to its simple, linear, progression. By instead focusing on the “How” instead of the “What” Joyce created a masterpiece still studied, debated, and dissected today. One that challenges the literary world with his expectation for more.
Applying the inverse, and like Joyce prioritizing the opposite, if we as architects and designers shift away from “How does this work” and move towards “What does this mean” what changes will arise in the built world? How will we view design differently? We live in a time where design has never been more important, more valued, and more critical in shaping the way we live our lives. However, as a profession, we are still too focused on the “How” instead of the “What” How does this app work? How does this building stand and how does circulation work? How does it impact the environment? Etc, etc. These are all important questions, ones we should not forget about and do not forget about at WAKE, but they are benign, basic, and of course, must be answered as a pre-requisite to the job. But they are just the prerequisite, the beginning of the design process and not what the focus should be on. We must ask ourselves and focus on the “What does this mean” for the betterment of our clients and project. What does this space mean for our client? What does this project mean for the community? What impressions linger in the afterthoughts of inhabitants that experience our plans and what do those impressions mean to them about our work and what we are trying to say through our design?
To value the “What” in addition to the “How” is a reminder to focus on everything that is human in our work and for the inhabitants that will occupy our space. If a resolution of the function is why we are hired as architects and form the easiest to control as designers, then we here at WAKE design will forever focus on that which dwells between form and function. We will focus on that which is human, intangible, provocative, memorable, and compassionate within our designs while remembering too, of course, always resolve both form and function, the prerequisites for design and architecture.
Each of these values can be interrupted differently and elaborated on more extensively, and have been in conversation with friends since that original question, but to do so here would be too time-consuming, for both you and I, and potentially close a door to future discussion with every curious client. A debate that I hope to have many times over the lifetime of this company and one which will evolve as my understanding of these values gets questions, argued against, and reshaped through intelligent, thoughtful discussion with the people most engaged in our lives.