To write about architecture is to write in the past tense. There's a very real position that architecture has already happened, that it's already pushed its way through and left you in its wake.I sat with my design team for just a few minutes today, with pen in hand. I drew what was first, and what had to be, and then we moved on to what could be.Pictures from magazines hunted us, taunted us, we wondered if that's what we would do, we left the door (window?) open, and we drew as much as we could.It was a charrette, of sorts, it was a seat at a desk. It was mostly me telling people what to do, if I'm honest, but we all know that it's not as if we have options.The answers are obvious, they're verifiable in inches and feet, and program, and cause and effect.And then, there's the space we leave open. Hey, designer, you do something here! Hey, that magazine plot you've promised to your client, I dare you! We have a lot of work to do! Look at these expectations were put on the table!Our clients ... so often, we don't meet them until we're well down the road. We try to avoid the deer-in-headlights surprises. We try to deliver what they're expecting, and a little bit more.But our clients are busy, they're making money, they're moving forward with their plans, and we are faced with the challenge and burden of communication, to present these new ideas, before they're finished, before we're entirely sure what they can do, we work as hard as we know to present an idea with upsetting the apple-cart, as it were, to present new and better ideas without exposing our uncertainty, about the workflow, about the burden that we have just placed on our own shoulders to prove this in tangible materials that the client can afford.And, here we go! Another presentation on Monday, and an empty day ahead to pull it off.
