DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

 

Ultimately, a building is the consequence of its users and the way that the building wants to be used and understood. This is the collaborative interpretation of the program by the client and the architect. The program, itself, that gives the measurable things of the building. This collective understanding of program must be read through an interpretation of the site. The site is one of the major actors in the process of design. The place infers beginning for the project, and in a way contains the logic of the project. Establishing a dialog with the site with harmony or tension, from its forms, conditions, context, memory, history, identity culture, character, people we may get desires and intentions. Each project understood as a singular instance of architecture, is a response to (or a dialogue with) a particular situation in a moment in time.

 

Each project is different, a new adventure and set of personal and professional relationships. This joy in discovery is also a question of translation between individuals, institutions, disciplines, and cultures. Program, site, client, users are each profoundly different in each project. The meaning of a project, for me, is to find the precise relationship and balance between all of them; and, ultimately, to articulate that understanding in the making of a place.

 

The work of an architect is always a work in progress expressed through various projects over time. Simultaneously, those thoughts and ideas used in past projects are rethought, reused, revisited and developed into new ones. In this way, the present tense of architectural design is always suspended between what we have done and what we will do in relation to that history. Having said that, change is a constant in all work in the form of new conditions, new clients, and new conceptions.

 

I understand the process of design as the synthesis of various thoughts dealing with different issues. Site, construction, program, users, clients, my favorite movies, dreams and many other circumstances form the basis of all designs. The importance of each of these elements in each project is a subjective and individual judgment determined by the agenda for the work.

 

An important part of the design process is the assembly of a team of qualified professionals in a variety of disciplines as collaborators in the work. The work of an architect is the work of a team working collaboratively to make the lengthy and complex design and construction of a building possible.