Doing original work

All good things which exist are the fruits of originality. John Stuart Mill

We never think entirely alone: we think in company, in a vast collaboration; we work with the workers of the past and of the present. [In] the whole intellectual world…each one finds in those about him [or her] the initiation, help, verification, information, encouragement, that he [or she] needs. A. G. Sertillanges

Designing, creating and thinking go together. You will very rarely work out what you think first, and then just draw it. Normally the act of drawing and sketching (or pen/pencil to paper) will make an important contribution to your working out what it is that you do think and see (visualising and conceptualising). In other words, the act of drawing and sketching may often be constitutive of your thinking.

Left to ourselves we can all of us keep conflicting ideas in play almost indefinitely, selectively paying attention to what fits our needs of the moment and ignoring the tensions with what we said or thought yesterday, or the day before that. Drawing out in a systematic way is an act of commitment, a decision to firm up and crystallize what we think and see, to prevent this constant reprocessing and reconfiguring.

Hence we need to commit ourselves in black and white.

(Reference from: Dunleavy’s book on Authoring a PhD)

The above write-up actually came from this quote below. I just substituted the words accordingly. I just want to prove that there are essential similarities between designing and authoring a book, as both are creative endeavours.

Authoring and thinking go together. You will very rarely work
out what you think first, and then just write it down. Normally
the act of committing words to screen (or pen to paper) will
make an important contribution to your working out what it is
that you do think. In other words, the act of writing may often
be constitutive of your thinking. Left to ourselves we can all of
us keep conflicting ideas in play almost indefinitely, selectively
paying attention to what fits our needs of the moment and
ignoring the tensions with what we said or thought yesterday,
or the day before that. Writing things down in a systematic way
is an act of commitment, a decision to firm up and crystallize
what we think, to prevent this constant reprocessing and reconfiguring.

The Truth of the Matter

Do you know what the real story is?

The real story about you, is that – You have got to KNOW yourself.

You have got to do anything in your life for your own sake.

If your lecturer says, “It’s a C!” It does not matter. What matters is that your own evaluation of yourself. If you think it’s an A, and not a C… guess what? It is an ‘A’. What matters is not what your lecturer thinks but what you think. Believe me, I am telling you the Truth about Life.

Life is about how YOU see it. Not about how your lecturer or anyone sees it, not even your parents.

This is not about not being grateful to your lecturers or your parents. No, it’s not about that. You are grateful and all that. It’s about “what really matters”. And that is what you think. And not what other people think.

The truth of the matter is – it does not matter what people think. The truth of the matter, is what you think is what truly matters!

People say you are not good enough, or that your work is not to par. Well, it’s all up to you to believe what people say.

To be honest, people have to do their jobs and are guided by some rules or beliefs or principles. It is up to you to believe them or not. It’s up to you whether you want to follow them, inside your heart.

Find your own way to evaluate yourself. Find your own truth and that’s what matters most.

In all honesty, that’s what really count, in your life. What you think and what you feel.

In dreams begin responsibility.
W. B. Yeats

Creative Endeavours

There is a lot of ’science’ in embarking on creative endeavours. Creative projects include architectural design, composing songs and playing competitive football. Creativity is the essence of life. Creativity creates life.

See this and this and this

We can get inspired from anywhere. We must get inspired to be able to create. Don’t fall into a panic situation and embrace the ‘no brainer’ cut and paste zombies…There is no need to do that, because we have the ability and the means to get inspired.

I get inspired by football. I use to be one of those who would just ‘feel’ for feeling sake. I did not use my other faculties to appreciate creative endeavours. I don’t have enough discipline and still lack in it, but I realised a lot of importance on understanding creativity. I can do my job and still be excellent without understanding creativity, if I want to. I can be a very good bureaucrat if I want to, well-versed in filing forms …etc But I decided I don’t want that kind of life.

Football is science and art. I am learning a lot about how people achieve excellence through football. The best coaches and managers read a whole lot of stuff and needs to really be good at what they are doing, to be able to maintain their teams at the highest level. Imagine the gigantic task for them to make their team consistently win at a high-level. It’s not them doing it alone. It’s creating a team that could do wonders. That is the highest level of creative endeavour.

Rafa Benitez’s quote in El Mundo 2008:

In the first place, I will let you know that my idea of good football and my concept of a good team relies on team order, balance on defence and cutting-edge on attack.   To accomplish this you need players who are able to read the game well, who know when it’s time to play short or long passes, when you need to attack through the middle or down the flank, when it’s time to keep possession of the ball or when you need to start a quick counter-attack. I’m talking about real footballers, who will take advantage of their abilities to help the team win by playing as well as possible, who will be able to adapt when needed, who will try to impose their style of play, but who can also vary that style for the benefit of the team and to help it win games.

In today’s football, cutting-edge in attack is becoming more and more of a collective or tactical effort, depends more on a group of players or positioning on the pitch than on a single player.  This is why a skillful player tends to draw our attention more often, but we must be able to distinguish between the skilful player and the cutting-edge player.

The first will dribble or dwell on the ball showing his technical ability; the second wins matches, is a constant threat to opposing teams and the solution for his team-mates when they can’t find their way. With a single touch he can find an open team-mate, he can find an open space when and where he should, makes an effort to do things the right way and always tries to  do what will benefit his team the most. In other words, he will play good football in order to win matches, not just for show.

My Mentor – Rafa Benitez

That’s it! That’s why he is my mentor! Even though he does not know it…

>>>>

Abridged extract of the laudatio delivered by Prof. Dr. D. Eduardo Cervello, at the Miguel Hernández University in Elche, 04/05/2008.
Aristotle explained that intelligence is not only defined by the possession of knowledge, but in how that knowledge is applied in practice. With that in mind, it is clear that the person, to whom I have the honour of awarding this Honorary Doctorate, is without doubt, an intelligent person.
Rafael Benítez is clearly representative of the communion between scientific study, intelligence and a passion for his work: all of which combined have brought him the success that he has become renowned for in his chosen field of competitive sport. It is hard to find – within sport in general, and specifically within football – another person who better embodies those characteristics. Rafael Benítez’ continued successes on the pitch are not a product of mere good fortune, but a consequence of the application of science to the field of sport. If there is a phrase that may be used to define Rafael Benítez: it is his passion for football and his fundamental desire to keep learning, understanding and improving in every respect.
We talk of Rafael Benítez as a football coach, yet this term is inadequate when it comes down to describing the global and holistic dimensions to his work. The traditional notion of a ‘coach’ hardly comes close to describing the way Benítez has surrounded himself with a team of dedicated specialists who are all pulling together to deliver the same objectives. Therefore, we are talking of not just a coach, but of an executive in charge of a body of sports professionals.
It is universally accepted that one of the most prized characteristics in the modern coach is the ability to lead and manage a group of people and, in the case of the recipient of this honorary doctorate, Rafael Benítez’ qualities in this area have won him the praise of everyone who knows him and who say that this represents one of his outstanding virtues.
It is worth looking at the example of his current club, Liverpool FC, where Benítez expertly leads and manages a team of over 40 experts: a group that includes physical trainers, physiotherapists, exercise physiologists, bio-mechanics experts, tactical analysts, nutritionists, video analysts and player scouts; all of them overseen and co-ordinated in their various departments by Benítez himself.
In all walks of life – whether in the sciences or in business – the most successful people are invariably those are able to see the ‘big picture’: those who possess a global vision that allows them to predict where best to focus their efforts and resources in the future. Rafael Benítez is one such person and his global vision has allowed him to introduce a number of bold innovations to the field of football coaching.
I would like to draw your attention to one such innovation: the utilisation of automated systems for measuring a player’s workload in training and in competition. These systems enable, amongst other things, the measurement of the amount of work and the exact level of exertion applied by every single player in a match, thereby allowing the coaches to plan a specific programme of recuperation and assess the recovery times necessary for every individual: providing vital assistance in planning that famous ‘rotation policy’. It is also a vital tool in the assessment of the physical demands of every specific playing position on the pitch and the tactical positioning of every player in every role in the team: permitting the creation of individualised preparation and planning for every formation.
Along similar lines, Benítez has made a further contribution with the development of a web based system that enable the gathering of information and images in real time, of any player anywhere in the world, updated via a network of scouts, in situ, spread out across the globe. This system also enables the development of a performance scale that can be used to measure the efficacy of each player against a different set of parameters. This database consists of literally hundreds of players.
And finally, the control of behavioural aspects is also a determining factor in Rafael Benítez’ team preparations. The setting of competitive objectives for players and positions; individualised tactical instruction tailored to every game and opponent in order to improve the efficiency of every player and to give the side a competitive edge: all elements that are incorporated in to the daily preparation of a group of players under the instruction of Rafael Benítez – who demands that they work as a team in the strictest sense of the word.
The following anecdote illustrates perfectly how Rafael Benítez’ scientific approach has been behind many of his extraordinary successes. In the 2005 Champions League final between Liverpool FC and AC Milan, with the two sides deadlocked at 3-3 following an astonishing comeback from Liverpool, the match was to be decided by a penalty shootout. As we now know, Liverpool finished as winners: courtesy of the fact that the Liverpool goalkeeper saved 4 out of Milan’s 5 penalties. Was that a coincidence?
As you can well imagine – with Benítez involved – the decision making of the Liverpool goalkeeper was supported by a rigorous historical analysis of Milan’s penalty taking in recent years and a record of exactly where every penalty taken by a Milan player had been directed. As Confucius said “in order to understand the future, we must look to the past.”
As you may appreciate by now, Rafael Benítez is much more than your typical football coach. Of course, this scientific approach does not guarantee success; but it must be remembered that Rafael Benítez’ endeavour and application is backed up by the 20 plus titles he has won since he began working in professional football.
Therefore, it is for all of those reasons, in this Olympic year: a sporting year par excellence, that on behalf of the Miguel Hernández University Elche, I bestow this Honorary Doctorate upon Sir Rafael Benítez Maudes.

Prof. Dr. D. Eduardo Cervello

Abridged version of speech delivered by Rafael Benitez upon receipt of his Honorary Doctorate…

If I’m being honest, I must say that from the moment I heard the news, I have been asking myself: what qualities do I possess to be deserving of such an award? Having heard the Laudatio delivered by my sponsor, I at least now partially understand the reasoning behind the decision. I believe it to be in recognition of my lifelong pursuit of the attainment of technical and scientific knowledge, through education, that I have endeavoured to apply, on a daily basis, to my professional life working within the football industry.
In recent times we have, fortunately, become used to seeing elite level teams employ specialists in sports medicine, orthopaedic specialists, physiologists, physiotherapists and so forth. Many of these specialists have gone on to become successful physical trainers with elite level teams, however, it is not all that common to find someone with a degree in physical education working as a coach and manager of a top flight team.
A question I am frequently asked, when discussing players, is whether or not a footballer – or any other athlete – is a product of nature or nurture: whether a player is born that way, or created. However, I am very rarely asked that same question when it comes to coaches and managers.

I believe that we would have to conclude that a talent for coaching is innate.

However, as in all walks of life, simply getting on with the job is not always enough and, even though an individual may possess a natural flair for coaching, a desire to improve and a commitment to learning is always going to lead to improvement.
Speaking from experience, you are never going to get very far without a decent grounding in theory and a solid grasp of the fundamentals.
Without hard work there is nothing, as Miguel Hernández wrote…

Not money, not the man;
he did not sweat or toil
to raise them he did nothing
on the closed soil. (Aceituneros )

(No los levantó la nada,
ni el dinero, ni el señor,
sino la tierra callada,
el trabajo y el sudor
The Olive Harvesters)

In other words, nothing worthwhile grows without sweat or toil; and for me, it is hard work that is the key to progress, development and success in any chosen profession. Of course, there are always exceptions that prove the rule; but hard work, dedication to the job and adequate training are all fundamental to success.
However, we must not forget that perseverance, determination, motivation, hope, curiosity and support are also vital. We all need support in order to grow: something that I have had from my family since infancy. I have had support from my mother, who took me to training in the evenings and in the middle of winter, when I was just 12 or 13 years old; from my father and brothers who came to watch me play – or to watch me ‘manage’ as my father used to say.
I have been supported by my family members who have been there to enjoy the victories and suffered alongside me in defeat; supported by my wife, who has stood by me when a job has come to an end, when the criticism has been ferocious, when I have had problems with the management and – why not – when celebrating the trophies.

And of course, I have been supported by my friends – my true friends – who have stood by me throughout the years.

This support is fundamental to an individual: in sustaining and improving him. And improvement is also borne of training and a combination of practical and accumulated experience: not to mention hour upon hour of study, investigation, analysis and research. All of which is a source of great pride for me, and my knowledge base is all the greater for it.
We must not forget that experience is not what happens to us, but what we learn from what has happened to us. We must apply what we have learned in order to keep learning.
Everybody knows that in the sporting arena, a coach’s ‘name’ can only go as far as making a good impression and is only of use at the outset; following that, it is knowledge and wisdom that are the key to earning the respect of your fellow professionals.

Therefore, as I said in the beginning, an ability to coach is innate; but it is also learned, and the adequate training of those working around you is also fundamental in achieving success.

Rafael Benitez

————————-

The above reproduced with kind permission from the Miguel Hernández University in Elche and Rafel Benitez. Copyright & Translation GuillemBalague.com

Further Reading

Analysis to Synthesis

Articulation is needed for a much tighter presentation. Punchier presentation. Bite size chunks and easy to swallow, palatable bits of information. Not a dull, tired, monotonous droning, drippy, dewy, sleep inducing monologue… No! You would not want to do that. You want your listeners to jump up and down their seats excited, spewing ideas and verbalising pearls of wisdom… so it’s give and take…give your listeners some juicy bits to chew on and to feel the taste of your design thesis in their mouth, swirl the ideas around their highly sensitive palate and swallow whole the concept…with a burp of schematic satisfaction….

That’s what you want to during a design crit!

How to Design

If a student of architecture comes to me and ask me this question, I would have to say, at first, “Yes, I could teach you how to design, but from my approach. There are numerous other approaches out there.” I would also add that my approach is probably from a Rationalist School similar to what perhaps Anthony Too and Lim Take Bane and Lim Teng Ngiom might approach, as I believe so. But perhaps not as rigorous and more personalised. I admire architects such as Louis Kahn and Le Corbusier simply because they were the true originators of the game.

I like to call Design or even Life as a Game, but that does not mean that I am flippant about Life, Design and my vocation. In fact I am very serious about it. I like to throw thoughts like bouncing balls off walls. My thought processes are very random, like the pecking sequence of a bird.

That’s why I have to be very organise and vocal about how I organise myself especially if it effects others. Often I think of things months ahead before it starts because I work that way, in a whirl-wind sort of way. I don’t mean to confuse people, but if I do, it’s because I said too much. I use to be worse at that before, so I am progressing to make more sense.

I am a designer but it may not be an architectural design that I may be designing at the moment. The most recent design was the Architectural School’s Curriculum. It is not innovative, but the process was to tighten and apply more content on theory and absorb the pedagogical aims of the University. Yes, we could be designing anything really.

Designing is my passion, which is equal to Teaching. I am not the traditional teacher type, imparting pearls of wisdoms upon students, but more of a moderator and facilitator type. I see patterns in conversation and dialogue, and love to highlight them. That is why you might find me to be rude, interrupting someone in mid-sentence, where I meant to underline the person’s point to the audience. Perhaps that is why I fantasise that I would be great as a TV talk host or my lost vocation of journalism. Putting those divergent thoughts away, I must reiterate that I love design to a fault. So teaching in this school gives me that chance to do what I love most.

Being involved with architectural education for a total of 14 years, I suppose I feel I am qualified to teach architecture even more so than before.

So back to the question of “How to Design”

If you give me a site and a brief, I will draw lines on the scaled plan. I will try to find some plan and some volumes (by sketching sections) by figuring up some proportions. It will not be to scale yet, but my sketch will get scaled early so that I will refine it as I get along. To me there is no time limit or timing to scale it. I think of 3D in plan. I have that skill.

Until I am satisfied with sketching in plan (there could be numerous), then only I will sketch a block in 3D of the volume and mass. Then I will cut it up. Sections. Perspectives. Vignettes. Anything…

I could do all that using a bold pencil – 8B. Or even one of those Graphite leads that are so blunt that I need to hold and press it gingerly. (I use to want to be a surgeon.) I prefer to only start using my 0.6 ‘Artline’ pens (any colour) when I really want to do the finished sketch design. If I think the 0.6 pen is too coarse (some people likes it coarse), I will use the 0.4 ‘Artline’ pens, colours black, blue and red. All colours combined to suggests different things. The 0.6 and 0.4 sometimes get to be combined as well. I draw on butter paper on top of a graph paper

So, how do I find Ideas?

I have lots of ideas in my mind mostly from reading, dialogues, watching television and documentaries. I read Scientific American, Fast Company, Monologue, Newsweek and many magazines that make me think about the world and mankind. Some give me perspectives that I would not normally experience. It is a short-cut to experiencing the world for real, like mountain-climbing or working with Donald Trump or being a Buddhist. Yes, taking roles or imagining yourself like an actor would do (in taking roles) helps too. Just don’t be too conscious about it.

If I think timber is needed, I will work on developing timberwork. Even working on the whole design based on timber. I don’t care if someone says timber is expensive than concrete. It’s my idea. I want to finish it. At least I shall be satisfied of the completed idea, even though the design will not be accepted eventually.

Sometimes I force myself to change and work with something else. Often there are constraints which I have to adhere to. Perhaps I would have a different approach if I was in practice working with bullish or bullying clients or cut-throat prices. I don’t know. But I do want to insist on my ideas. I would have loved to just work on conceptual design and let others build it.

By right, there is no such thing as concept when it’s on drawing form. Yes, ‘concept’ which means similar to conceiving a design must be felt and experience, only then you can really appraise or be critical of the concept. What we are doing before it is being built and use is to move towards a concept. We are mostly dealing with ideas. However, we can use other concepts as ideas, but our concept is our origination.

I think this is good enough for me to explain on paper “how to design”, and it’s an attitude just like any other endeavour. Yes, everyone has to develop their own attitude and approach. As long as you are able to convince others that what you created is good and sound. Having said that, there are many approaches based on fantasy and experimentation, depending on who your audience and assessors are, may or may not be appreciated whole-heartedly.