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What would you do within your design if you had access to glass in architecture that was stronger and more durable than steel? Would you span longer distances with it? Create more transparent and “warped” forms with it? Or might you even create new combinations of perceptual intrigue — like a transparent cantilever which extends outward further, or a transparent building base which makes all that is above it appear to “float”.

Such questions in architectural design are important to ask yourself as a way to get you thinking “outside of the box”. So often, after using the same materials in very similar ways over and over again, you as an architect may forget, over time, to push the boundaries of what certain materials (like glass) can do.

So I invite you to take the materials and other architectural elements that you work with, and turn them on their head. Ask yourself what you would do if light could be laser focused within your design. Ask yourself what would happen if certain elements like windows could become transient. Ask yourself what you would do with Read more

Image: Jeremy Levine Design | Flickr

Architectural environments can be a type of extension of oneself. Thus, by understanding the clues that we leave behind in our environments, we can actually gain a better understanding of ourselves. And such clues are everywhere within the spaces where we spend our time.

Such clues are architectural objects — which are everything from the type of furniture we have to the type of books we read and store in our bookshelves. Such architectural objects collectively say a lot about us. And as such, you as an architect can use this information to not only design better spaces for your occupants, but to also learn more about your occupants before you ever design their space.

If you have the opportunity as an architect, to visit your future occupants’ current environment, I would say that is definitely a worthwhile trip. They say that a picture is worth 1000 words, and I’d say that visiting a person’s environment is worth triple that.

By seeing where your future occupant currently spends their time (engaging in a multitude of the activities that you are designing for), you will get tremendous insight into their likes and dislikes that may very well inform you about Read more

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When examining your design process, determine your weakest link — that is the area within your design process system that is hindering you from improving your design projects and/or your design business. Understand what is holding you back creatively (often you will find that there is a “weakest link” in your design process which is holding your whole system back. Thus, if you improve this link, your entire design process will benefit. So, whether your weakness is in building models, coming up with innovative conceptual design gestures, translating your architectural vision into a 3d virtual world, or being-true to your initial design vision all the way through to building completion — you should learn how to strengthen this weak link by either learning how to improve your “how to” knowledge directly, or by finding a better and perhaps more innovative solutions, resources and/or methods to help you get the results you want. Again, once your weakest design process link is strengthened, the rest of your design process system will benefit — and as you may infer, this is a very powerful way to leverage your time.

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Get feedback from others that you respect, and I mean more than only your client. Don’t work in a vacuum. By making your work “semi-public” at certain stages (even if “semi-public” means “within your office”), your design will become stronger as you will be able to respond with creative solutions to the different perspectives of what is working or not working within your project. Use the feedback you receive as a way to understand your own design process. After all, design feedback about a design work of yours can give you insight into not only your end result, but about your design process as well.

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Commercial building plans evolve over time as you travel through the different stages of creating your building, from schematic all the way through to your construction document set. As your original architectural design concept materializes in the beginning, you soon begin to anchor in those building design ideas that need to be finessed and built upon as your design process moves forward.

But I have some questions for you today…

Do you still continue to design with the same amount of creativity as you delve into each stage of your building design process? In other words, are you more strategic and creative at the beginning during the schematic stage as compared to your design development phase? And how do you work with your team as your commercial building plans evolve through your various design process stages? Does your building design get handed off to others at certain stages? Or is there someone seeing the project through at all stages? And how do these different methods of working affect your end result?

I ask these questions because I am curious to learn about what happens to your design when focus shifts from a grand design gesture to a more detailed design nuance. Also, I am interested in what happens to your design if it pushes through different teams of people as it passes from stage to stage. Whatever your case may be, make sure that the following occurs: Read more

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When You’re working on an aspect of your design where you just don’t seem to be making headway on finding an elegant solution, try shifting to something else for a while — or if it’s the end of the day, simple leave it as what you will tackle first thing the next day. By leaving the design problem, think of it as still “facing you”. So, take a break or sleep on it overnight, and when you return to it the next day — the design problem’s solution will present itself to you. This works for me time and time again. For example, while building a model during a design stage, I would leave the unanswered portion of the design problem that was taking me too long to solve by literally facing the physical problem area toward my empty desk chair just before leaving studio. Sure enough, the image of it “facing me” allowed me to ruminate on the design problem even while I was away from the office. And sure enough, the answer would usually present itself to me upon my return.

New interactive tools are surfacing to help architects do their job better. One such tool is a multi touch 3-D architectural application which can be used as both an interactive table device and a larger scale screen projection. While I can see such devices being helpful to architects for brainstorming, project reviews, coordination meetings, and client presentations, we really should ask — is this just another “cool” device? Or, does it really help architects like you to do your job better?

Before we go on to talk further about the application technology, I think it best to show you a glimpse of what such multi-touch devices can do:

As you can see, 3-D visualizations are developing past solely working with still renderings or even scripted and locked in place animations — which today mostly run as “replays” of camera movements that serve to walk someone through a space along a predesignated path. But what makes these new multi touch virtual reality environments even more helpful is that they give architects the ability to Read more

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So much of our time as architects is spent thinking and designing for projects that live on land, but what about architecture that lives on water? What if you had to design a human dwelling that is not only near the water, but actually in it?

Change a Major Variable…Like the Site

One would think that if you are an architect solely designing for buildings on land it would be a waste of time to think about what it would take to design them on water. But have you considered that by thinking about a design on water, you may actually come up with more innovative design solutions to many of the problems that arise when trying to design for land? For instance, in the following video you will see a hotel design concept that shows a hotel visitor’s room underwater — where you will see their bed, dresser and a couch (just like in a typical hotel room might have).

However, within this “underwater hotel”, a visitor could literally lay in bed and see a complete panorama of the underwater world floating above, as a canopy surrounding their bed. Can you imagine what it would be like to be a visitor there, falling asleep while watching fish and other sea life swim by? I know they say that fish tanks are relaxing, but what about sleeping beneath the ocean?

Kidding aside, by completely changing the type of Read more

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Often in architectural design (and as with any business) there is a wide variety of modeling, testing, and planning to ensure that the final project (or product) will make its way into the real world with great success. As architects, I know that there are a wide variety of things we do to help us visualize our built environments for clients — where we pull from our own internal talents and resources, combine them with the latest know-how and efforts of our design team and consultants, and then proceed to get them accepted by all kinds of review boards, committees and so on. But — have you ever done a quality control design test of your building after it’s built? If so, how do you do it? And what do you do with the results?

Do you ever ask yourself — How much testing and surveying do we really do as architects once our building is built? What do we do after it is constructed? Do we merely check in on it in a general manner and use it for marketing opportunities?… Or, do we examine what our design team has created?

I say all of this because I think it is important to have a relationship and connection with your designed buildings after they are built. Wouldn’t it be nice to be a “fly on a wall” so you could get a sneak peak at exactly how your building occupants use your spaces, interact with them, behave within them and so on?

Why Running a Design Test Is so Important, And How You Can Start to Do It

Of course, if something about your building really fails, I am pretty sure you hear about it in no time flat. However, there are ways for you take the time to really observe the nuances to what you have built for your occupants. For instance, it is important to really listen and watch the way the people within your buildings use your designs. You will immediately begin to see the things that work and the things that do not, but even more amazingly your design test observations will lead to realizations and then into Read more

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New technologies and tools are surfacing faster and faster these days, and one that has major impact and momentum is BIM, a digital media tool which allows architects to create a virtual building information model.

Such BIM design technologies are contributing to what some say will lead to major paradigm shifts for architecture firms — namely in the way architects engage in their own design process as well as the ability to foster greater collaboration between clients, contractors and consultants.

BIM design tools will allow for great detail in virtual building models, where an architectural design will will come together in more meaningful and cross-collaborative ways — beyond anything typical AutoCAD models have been able to do thus-far.

Such BIM visualization tools allow for much more, like the ability to model a building with everything from partitions, to plumbing and HVAC systems. Furthermore, BIM design will also allow architectural team members to study light and energy before the building is ever built. And yet, it does still more.

As the article entitled “BIM Me Up, Scotty” explains, this kind of Building Information Model can work with applications which allow you, as an architect, to run what is called “clash detection“. This can go a long way toward preventing design problems and conflicts, large and small, very early on in the design process. This works by allowing computer processes to check the model against certain rules like code regulations, accessibility requirements and even structural system issues. Wouldn’t you want to know about such problems early on in your design process, as opposed to finding out about them later on?…when they cost more money and are more difficult to fix.

What Does BIM Design Mean for Your Creative Process?

At present, many architects work with digital media tools like 3D Studio Max, AutoCAD, Revit and Rhino for computer visualizations and modeling. However, BIM has the potential and power to bring a new dimension to your world of architectural design, perhaps helping to further empower your firm.

By being able to model your building in such great detail early on in your design process, you will be able to reduce Read more