I believe the form-function argument is a serious problem in the profession that warrants a great deal of discussion. What seems relevant to me is how so many architects today use the issue of function so ineffectively and uncreatively in their work. It's like that student we all remember at school, who could talk a good game, but there was very little on paper to back up what he said. I believe the same is true of so many today who put way too much stock in their own rationalism over "function" and program, not knowing how to truly create good designs, or understanding what it is that great designers are doing so differently from them.
Recently, a friend of mine had analyzed the be-Jesus out of an architectural work process, and had produced the most incredible flow charts I had ever seen. He was somebody who does a lot of LEAN process analaysis. But I was having trouble trying to explain to him that his work was not condusive to
creative processes. He didn't understand my point because he felt that eliminating waste and clutter was a way of increasing a creative environment. He was a believer in LEAN and believed it applied to everything we do. This is a classic example of how people can take something from our culture that looks and sounds successful and rational, and not understand it's limits and faults.
I tried to explain that LEAN is a great process for
refinement. Toyota took this process and became a great manufacturer. And when you have a single design figured out that you want to produce a million copies of, refinement can go a long, long ways to better productivity, fewer errors, more profit, . . . etc. And most clients I see wanting to use LEAN, are obssessing over getting more profit out of a known process. However, this process does not make them more
innovative in the general sense. It simply makes a known process faster or more error free.
In our world, if anybody is Toyota it has to be the contractor rather than us. Contractors can obesses over LEAN for great reason, because to a large extent, they are not trying to reinvent their process. They are a manufacturer, and LEAN is all about manufacturing, and they can devote most of their interest into refining what they do. All that objective thinking can help them do a better job. But that is not what we as architects do. Our process, as initiators of a design, is a discovery process. We have to take a discovery process, which is anything but LEAN, and convert it into a refinement process language. In many ways, refinement processes compete with innovation, because refining can be too efficient at eliminating options and possibilities.
I'm finding a lot of architects are obssessed with refinement processes. They are out to seek all the rationalism they can find, trying to whittle things down to their essence. But here is the error. They are using it as a discovery mechanism. There is no doubt they can discover things while refining. But they make a major fault of mistaking their refinements of data as innovations of design. The results are typically not very creative in the end. If you are too efficient at eliminating variables, then you are not going to be innovative. And I would say a lot of very creative corporations and organizations have figured this out over the years, and have had to break away from LEAN thinking to various degrees in order to become more
creative with their work. They recognize the many faults of carrying concepts of "efficiency" to illogical extremes.
I get the same fears and doubts when I read about "evidence based design," which sounds to me like just another version of the same half truth as LEAN. They offer good information that is definitely billable. And perhaps it's the fact that clients are all too willing to pay for this information that architects convince themselves they have found the Holy Grail to design. But without an understanding of how innovation works, they are ultimately not so different than that student who could talk a good game, without backing it up with an actual design of real merit.
As I've stated before, too much confidence in the data, as a comprehensive design basis, reminds me of a musician who can play the heck out of a piano, who knows all the cords, scales, and techniques, but has not a clue how to write a good song. Great data is not going to give you a great design just as great instrument technique isn't going to write a great song for you.
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Rich Farris AIA
Architect
Dallas TX
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-24-2011 11:34
From: Patrick Quinn
Subject: THE topic
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Patrick Quinn FAIA
Albany NY
------------------------------------------- This has so far been a most fascinating discussion leading ultimately to the recent sweet revelation that it is not the budget that limits delight, inspiration, talent or design quality. Nor is it LEED, nor laws, nor petty officialdom.
Harking back just a little bit, I am surprised that no one has mentioned the real quote from Louis Sullivan:
"Form Follows Function is mere dogma, until you realize the higher truth the form and function are one."
It does not matter what dictionary definition one gives to the terms, so long as the terms are viable in the context of the immediate project and consonant with one another.
When the late , wonderful Joseph Esherick spoke of design process, he maintained..... (as my memory has it)...it does not matter where you begin. An architect can start at any point, look backwards and forwards and inwards and outwards in order to understand the problem and then get it moving toward the discovery of what is possible. That capacity is what Joe felt made the architect's intervention important. A tabla rasa is no great advantage and may even be a hindrance to good design.
I do not have time to follow every day of the controversy but when I dip into these shifting tides of opinion
I am nudged to reflect on my own occasionally dogmatic and opinionated viewpoints, because I find that I am not alone in inadvertently shifting emphasis from time to time on what I feel passionate about.
Like travel, this journey through exchanges and ideas is a great opportunity to see the
diversity of attitudes, perspectives, yes, even prejudices that shape the world of architecture. The more recent posts remind me of Spiro Kostof's key contribution to new ways of looking at history. In reflecting on the vernacular, he emphasized that even the most modest buildings are worth looking at.
Let the discussion keep flowing to find its way. I happily learn from the ebbs and surges.
Thanks to all of you, my colleagues.