In today’s world of design, there are still things that take time and thought to be successful.  Whether it be an object for your home, a new home, a new building, a poster for an upcoming event, or a new clay vessel to enjoy your coffee or tea, it takes time to generate original thought and design direction and even more time to implement your thoughts and transform them into useful drawings that can be followed to bring those original thoughts into physical reality.  Looking into the future, the designer’s role is bound to change, but the need for a creative thinker will always be necessary.  This week’s message is to provide you with a simple, basic design process and then challenge you to ‘go design something!’  The technical drawings and fabrication can come later.  If you take on and complete the challenge, you will prove to yourself that design takes time.

DESIGN CHALLENGE

• Sit quietly and think about something you’ve always wanted to design or something you encounter everyday that you want to ‘re-design.’ (Can there be a better toaster? Or even tougher, a better fork?)
• Once you have something identified, write down three major goals for your design and any minor goals you want your design to accomplish.
• With the design item identified and the goals identified, it’s time to start sketching. The sketches don’t have to be pretty; they need to convey an idea.  Don’t stop until you are satisfied and feel you have enough information to show the sketches to someone and have them be able to get a feel for the design.
• Remember, it’s about starting and putting something down on paper to be shared and talked about as collaboration and feedback on most important at this point.

The purpose of this blog is to share information on design, not limited to architectural design, but all design. To a degree, design is subjective. I pursued an architectural design career because it combined art and science and have no regrets.
I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and raised in Kailua on the windward side, Kailua—no ka oi, unless you are from town. When I was young, my mom helped me design and build a ‘tree’ fort between two coconut trees in our back yard.

This was probably a telling moment regarding my future career, but at the time, I had no clue. I just wanted it to be high enough off the ground to peak over the hedge into our neighbors back yard, catch some of the trade wind breeze in the summer and have a trap door with a rope ladder access. I guess in many ways, this was my first house for myself, I loved it, mahalo mom.
Fast forward to 2023. After owning an architecture firm in Durango, Colorado for 30 years, and 600+ projects later both big and small, I often think back to my tree house, life was much simpler, no such thing as a personal computer back then let alone computer aided 3D design.
Technology is overwhelming, exciting, helpful, frustrating and everything in between. Experience and years of practice has been an interesting muse for me. For the final chapter of my design career, I will be taking life slowly, enjoying traveling, designing select architectural projects and objects and sharing insight on design and the design process.