On Storylines...

One of the things they teach in design school (probably as with most creative majors anyway) is how to distill an idea (whether its a marketing strategy or a design concept) into a storyline. 

This is usually to compensate/cover what would be a long, meandering thought process wherein you start-off thinking you'll end up a certain direction- wander-off to another... and then stumble into something else... which in the end looks like something you were thinking of in the first place. 

Why is it so important to mask this disorderly exploration... with a nice, tight, elegantly story-boarded, storyline? My guess is that... specially for design practices... we can't afford to come across as completely bohemian, artsy-fartsy and disorganized... not to our clients... because they pay good money to see that... ah! Mr. designer so-and-so, or Architect so-and-so is creative... but professional as well.   

And so.. we designers/architects - try our hand at amateurishly pitching these simplified nutshelled ideas to our audiences... whether they may be our clients, our professors, our colleagues/peers, our students... heck... even to ourselves. We do it several hundred times in a decade... creating bad habits. Heck... oftentimes, poor practitioners of this black-art get started without even cultivating any good habits. 

Instead of using the storyline to summarize both the products and the creative process... we use the storyline to shallowly post-rationalize our so-called "concepts"... Even worse... as is often the case... the process becomes subservient to the storyline... turning our products into a sad pastiche of interesting shapes, colours and patterns...  a collage of familiar buzzwords and repetitive taglines... like... "a new way of looking at architecture" or... "eco-city" or "exclusive enclaves" or... "organic pods"... "batik/fabric patterns" "new-age office" I've even heard one of the larger chinoy architects say that their project is following green architectural principles because it uses green, low-e glass... OMG! etc etc etc ad infinitum.

And then we wonder... what happened to our creativity? How come we're not rolling new ideas out? How come we come to the same things again and again? 

Indeed... people/audiences need their input broken down into digestible parts... and that general catchphrases/broad motherhood statements are great to tie a storyline together... but let's not turn ourselves into Dubya Bush... lets not reduce ourselves to a series of catchphrases... lets not reduce our clients into little kids... thinking they're not capable of taking in the depth/complexities of more important issues. 

Maybe that's why I'm a wee-bit disillusioned with the state of most Pinoy practices I see today... because my dad/mentor taught me about the fundamental layers... the core things which matter the most.  Coming from a small practice... working with clients who are usually self-made-men/entrepreneurs... they can't afford to listen and appreciate your fluff... because your fluff costs money... and is fluff anyway.

So... what is it that matters? how about efficiency? managing your costs? improving traffic by removing your chokepoints? lightening your structure so that your overall engineered cost goes down? THINGS LIKE THAT... because the sad thing about our architectural training is that... we're taught how to design... but not "practice" architecture... and practice is a helladifferent world compared to "design". 

Don't get me wrong... I'm not exempting myself/our firm from the criticism... in fact... its what drives me to help our practice find better ways to design... Let's not fool ourselves that... by talking about folding pieces, articulated forms, cheezy massing/volumes, bright colours and feature walls - we're talking about architecture... its so much more than that.

Let this be a challenge for my colleagues... to look beyond the typical client-architect dynamic

and cut through our own fluff... and engage our clients... educate them (not in form-making) but in the ins-and-outs of our work... but also to educate ourselves... to train ourselves that more than just selling a storyline to our clients... that we're bringing in much much, more added value to their business... than just a catchphrase.