The answer to my students in the design thesis studio is simply – I, too, can choose to do ‘minimum’.

The ‘play safe’ culture is prevalent in UM. And it’s so ripe and growing in the 5th year design thesis studio. It is a disease because you are never challenged and you just love to ’stay safe’ in your comfort zone.

You do not want to complain, less of all, provoke or cause any unwarranted attention, but this is what happens when all you think is not to ‘rock the boat’ and stay under the radar. Sure, why not?

Play safe then. It’s your choice, isn’t it.

Trying too hard.

Wanting it too badly.

Feeling as though each every day thing you have done the last 24 hours somehow has some bearing on the outcome of tomorrow’s game. Of course it doesn’t. Still we do it though – now is time to be calm, take a deep breath and take stock.

Reading the Paul Tomkins meeting with Rafa this week has just reinforced what I already knew. We have a top man, a genuine and good-hearted man, at the helm of this club. He lives and breathes it and deserves, commands and gets (in most parts) our respect.

Second in line is a more local figure head, but no more passionate than Rafa in terms of Liverpool and the city. Sammy Lee is the lungs and pulse, keeping the players from the edge of failure.

Thirdly we have Kenny, the King, the arms and legs of this club now reaching out, taking us to new places and meeting new friends, extending the hand and greeting old ones.

With these three we cannot fail. Let’s not get too hung up about tomorrow, or the next game. Relax, keep the faith, have the belief, and inhale and consume all the calmness that Tomkins returned with him on Wednesday. We are in good hands and sometimes we need reminding.

Yesterday, whilst interviewing supporters in the city centre, a local man simply said that ‘every true Liverpool fan is behind Rafa…. he has been good for Liverpool and the city and knows us’.

And there you have it. 50 years ago a sure of himself man from a Scottish mining village came in to Liverpool and had to spend the early years transforming the out of touch club. The man we have now does know us – he has been here before.

(Taken entirely from a post by a poster named Rafas3leggedtable from the Red and White Kop Forum.)

Believe in yourself.

The design thesis is about the program.

The program is everything in Architecture.

Is Architecture about buildings?

No, Architecture is not about buildings alone.

Architecture is art and science. Architecture is about the act of organising, structuring and visualising space for people. Architecture is about space first and form second.

Process is master to product.

When the ‘art’ in architecture becomes important and the ’science’ in architecture takes its course, then the process also takes its course.

Hence the reason why the program is important.

The program is not just the brief of accommodation and the site analysis. The program is the architecture.

Design thesis is about getting a program to be explored and often tested.

That’s what a design thesis is for.

UPDATE on the Design Thesis Process Diagram:

I posted this earlier on June 9th 2009. Please note that with regards to the Question in the beginning, it is the same as the Hypothesis. And very closely after that the Objectives. Which people often quote as the Design Problem.

The bottom line is: If you are stuck and cannot actually say what is your Thesis, then you just need to identify the Design Problem / Statement. Its the same as the question/hypothesis/objectives… Don’t get confused.

I write these things in my blog to explore what Design Thesis is. It is meant to be helpful and not to confuse.

So if you are stuck now – State your Design Problem / Statement.

If your Design Problem / Statement lack issues or just one thing only at a superficial level, you are in trouble. You really have got to sit down and really think hard. Go back to all the comments and criticism and really find out what is it that is lacking. There is still time left to create a viable thesis for the 5th year level. If only you just take time to think properly…

I was having a discussion with some of the students yesterday, when I realised the “question” needed to be stressed again and again, as the students were mumbling more about the “what” and the “how to”.

The “what” and the “how to” is more to do with the “hypothesis” and is further down the design thesis road. You need to know where the starting point is if not you go down the “merry path of no where” and that would be wasting your time, so back to the “question” which has to be the right question as you will need to answer it further down the road when you finally summarise all that you had gathered and start with the concept.

If you look at this diagram and the co-relation with semester’s duration of time, this is the optimum or predicted time to be taken along the road.

So there have been cases where the time taken was really long to get to the concept.

We want to avoid that, but if it happens and you are pulling your hair being static and motionless suddenly in the course of the journey, take a look at the diagram and see where you are. Perhaps you may need to retrace your steps even right back to the “question”.

So when we say “process”, we really mean a step-by-step journey rather than a jump or a leap to the unknown. Well, sometimes the process do feel like a leaping off a cliff but its more a feeling of dread doing something you have never done before rather than the process itself.

If I may choose a phrase to describe why the Design Thesis exists, it is to “Fight for Art”.

We have heard before : Architecture is both Science and Art.

Well, what does that mean? Apparently, you have to use or work or live in architecture. There are users involved. The Science of Building -  making it buildable, livable, usable, safe etc is part of Science. So, science have a big say in it.

But then who’s big idea is it to say its also Art. Why does Architecture need to be beautiful?

If we want to approach the argument via Vitruvius’s often quoted phrase of: Utilitas, Firmitas, Venustas (Commodity, Strength, Beauty), we can, of course. But not today.

Today, I am approaching it with Jeannette Winterson in mind, referring to her book – Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery (1995) where she says:

Art does not imitate life. Art anticipates life.

Surely as a designer, we need to appreciate and understand Art. We can learn from other disciplines – writers, artist, designers of fashion and products, etc.

Another quote from Winterson (1995):

We seemed to have returned to a place where play, pose and experiment are unwelcome and where the idea of art is debased. At the same time, there are a growing number of people (possibly even a representative number of people), who want to find something genuine in the literature of their own time and who are unconvinced by the glories of reproduction furniture.

In Winterson’s quotes, I want to find the grounds of argument for Art in Architecture. At first, when I talked about Aesthetics, it is more to do with the skin or surface, ornamentation or proportions in form and so on. In traditional arts, my post-graduate students had reviewed that Aesthetics and Function go together. Ancient people do not view beauty as separate from utility, and strength is expected. To build to last. That is why we just could not ignore historical buildings of the old.

What is Art?

Why must Art imitate Life? (Reproduction furniture…)

Why must Art anticipate Life? (Originality…)

In Architecture, we have got to anticipate Life. Aesthetics and Function are one and not separated. Through the design process, we explore Life, anticipate all the numerous possibilities that can emerge from our study on Life, and all the ideas that comes with it, flowing freely and then the form will emerge. Rather than being form-driven, to find originality, we need to be driven by the process.

Yesterday, during the studio pin up session, I noticed some students were slowly “getting off from the blocks” but many did not realise that they are in a race. In a sprint relay analogy, getting a momentum quickly would ensure that you have a chance to grab for a credible medal finish. But of course, you would need to build on that momentum until the finishing line.

Another analogy is to compare the design thesis process with a “marathon”. In this case, its about “pacing oneself”.

The  ideas  “momentum building” and “pacing oneself” are important aspects in sustaining a possible winning finish and is something that I believe into be true.

I remembered having a good momentum doing my design thesis but fell into a fairly long period of distraction,  side-tracked, off-paced and was sufficiently emotionally exhausted with a problem that I had with a couple of housemates back then in London. It was really affecting me badly and my design thesis supervisor noticed it by saying ” you have not been progressing…” I did not tell her exactly what the problem was, but I acknowledged her diagnosis by saying that ” Yeah, it’s so difficult to push my design further and it feels like ‘wringing clothes and getting very little water out’ with my progress”.

I reflected on yesterday’s pin up session and the fact that the bare bones and rudimentary outline of things to come was shown by many students. Be it in the program, the sketch, the diagram… so like in a race, all the student need is to just push on to get the right concept.

If the momentum is not there or really slow in coming, sometimes the problem is ‘not dealing with a bigger issue’, not asking the important and over-riding question earlier in the design process.

Sometimes its just about just drawing, drawing and drawing – it out!

It’s visual, so it has to be tangible.

The critical point in the Design Thesis is when you have to decide and so much work to be done. Other work! Like dissertation…

Life is not fair. It’s always like that mind you. It’s always happens when you have the most work at the critical juncture. The point where you need to make inroads to discovery of your great concept. Its all hard work. Nothing comes by magic.

Learn to parcel out work. Learn to simplify things.

Not easy but it can be done.

Learning to concentrate is vital.

A moment would pass you by. When you least expect, if you don’t catch it, it will slip by indefinitely. You can’t have that moment again.

“Every once in a while, we have our rare moments, when everything seems to suddenly come together, like a good book..but they also go away quickly…the opportunity, the site, the client, the market…we make the best we can from these moments, such we find in projects as point92 “, huatlim.

These rare moments for a designer is depicted in Huatlim’s experience. All of a sudden he got the opportunity, the site, the client and the market all at once.

In the design thesis process, you can make it easier for yourself. You can create the opportunity definitely, and the site and the client. And when you set up the market, you will have a higher level to achieve in your design. To make it real, to produce something that can be transformed and change lives, even more so.

In the case of the designer, it is possible.

I was looking for something but I stumbled upon a conversation at forum.lowyat.net:

http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/623018

Ah…the mention of James Steele and UM is there as well…I was wondering if people interested in the 4th year (B Arch) is attracted to the USC-UM programme per se.

I was just fascinated with this word: FULCRUM

One definition is: the pivot about which a lever turns (when fulcrum is a noun) Remember your Science lesson? Physics?

Another is: An agent through which vital powers are exercised.

“Vital powers” meaning important and all embracing powers, then. And what powers are these?

Let’s put it in context.

Alonso is the fulcrum of the Liverpool FC. He is the one that sprays passes to the attacking players on the offensive. Sometimes Alonso helps with the defense. He is the “fulcrum” of the team. The agent that exercised the vital powers in the team. He sees the problem and solves it immediately. He reads the game intelligently. He is a thinking player.

Yup, that’s what I want to be. The thinking player. The fulcrum.