Joined by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Chris Lefteri, and Thom Mayne

Stephen: The man who invented the adhesive for post-it notes once said “If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn’t be research.”  We’re here to close the day by talking about design.  Tom, where do your ideas come from?

Tom: It’s part of our process, we interrogate the broad problem.  Architecture has changed over the past decade from something viewed merely as a structure to component in a broader environment.

Stephen: Any act of creativity is by nature disruptive, it makes something new.

Tom: I missed the session on belief and these days we only have provisional narratives, so we have no basis.

Stephen: do you believe there is standard of perfection?

Tom: No.  Through what cultural lens?  I feel that beauty is no longer interesting to most architects.

Stephen: If beauty doesn’t exist then ugliness doesn’t exist.  Do you agree?

Tom: I remember seeing the lunar lander as a kid, and it was sort of awkward thing.  It went from point A to point B over a vast distance.  To me, that’s very interesting, it had capability.  Is that beautiful?  I rather think of whether or not our objects have intelligence.

Stephen: Chris, what role do mistakes play in your work?

Chris: Everyone talks about how they get into design and I was a destructive doer, I took things apart, and that’s what I do on a daily basis, either metaphorically or physically.

Stephen: It’s been said that even destruction is a creative act.  Blaise, what role do mistakes play in your work?

Blaise: We are a part of nature, and we make the mistake of pretending that we’re not, and we know a lot about systems, and equilibrium, and how niches are formed, and how disruptions occur.  We see habitat destruction occur both naturally and synthetically.  the landscape is changing very fast and we see an acceleration occurring and associated punctuations.  I think what makes for a powerful disruptive idea is that a possibility opens up that in turn opens up more possibilities.

S: Regardless of what you’re making, design holds a contradiction, because you’re making something you think is better, but then you feel that it should have lasting value.

T: We’re looking at challenging notions, and methods that facilitate that.  We produce something, then challenge it in scientific terms.  The solution is provisional.

B: You asked about making something lasting, which I think is interesting and is something of a provocation is and of itself.  Bronzes are fairly permanent, but the vast majority of things humans have made don’t survive.

S: Are we all saying that beauty doesn’t exist?

C: No, I disagree.  I think that the idea of impermanence/permanence is interesting.  We’re not driven by experience, by brand.  I don’t think the object’s beauty is the driver anymore.

B: We have a very strange relationship with the idea of permanence and utility.  The founder of World Changing told me that the average time a drill is used over its lifetime is 12 min.  It’s a insane figure.  It’s especially insane that everyone own one.

It’s not just about the 12 min the drill is run, it’s the face that the drill isn’t recycled.  Nature doesn’t work in permanence.

S: Much of what we’ve created is done in opposition to nature.

T: There’s an idea of status or enhancement; the physicality of the thing is secondary.  It’s disconnected from enhancement either in practical terms or otherwise.

S: There’s a more ambitious definition of beauty, that is that if we want to reproduce something, it’s beautiful.   Chris, is beauty a useful concept to you in what you do.

C: No, it’s useful for stories, and extracting things, but I tend to focus more on feeling.

S: Blaise, mathematicians speak of beauty, what is their definition?

B: You’re asking me to make a definition of something that many better philosophers have failed to do. I do find beauty very relevant to everything I do.  It doesn’t matter if it’s beauty of an object or beauty of a process.

T: Beauty tends to be a more personal appreciate of something, but it’s not what I drive a project from.

S: Have you ever been asked to design a beautiful building?

T: Yes, but as an architect I see it more as a structural problem, not just what it looks like.  I see it as part of an evolving process, but the client just sees it just as it is.

B: There’s a trend and you’re not the first architect I’ve heard express this.  It’s this idea of beauty in modern architecture through the application of constraints, and cutting through the crap.

T: It’s parallel to its internal logic and you react to that.  Out of that consistency, it leads you to something we call beauty.

S: If you were a designer 50 years ago, the great challenge would be to design office equipment or a motor car, but designers don’t want to do that.  So what do designers do in an age when the most highly valuable thing—information—is invisible.

C: It’s the experience.  Beauty has been replaced amazing, or cool…

B: Do you say things suck?  That something’s total s**t?

C: Sure.

T: It’s the engagement, something that takes you somewhere.

S: I’d like to bring this to an elegant conclusion, but we have too many diverging opinions!

Q: I would also like to talk about beauty.  My understanding of design is that it has at least two components: it has functionality and it has an aesthetic.  I’m very worried that we’re not allowed to talk about beauty.  If we’re not allowed to talk about it, we can’t talk about how we react to it emotionally and even spiritually.  I would imagine a lot of designers are trying to have an aesthetic in mind, even if it’s not visual.  If we say we don’t have beauty, are we saying that the requirements of design have changed?
A: (Tom) The discussion is how you arrive there.  Yes, it has utility.  Yes, it has an aesthetic.  But it’s the discussion how you arrive at that point, and there’s a group who approach this in a non-a prioi way.  Blaise said that parallel to science as designers you’re interested in the location of your ideas, and today one of the locations is the process by which the result takes place.  I would say that it has very much to do with the internal logic, and quite different from the logic of mathematics.  And from that, you can evaluate it and everyone will disagree.  It’s impossible to evaluate something on its physical terms.  What we can agree with is some of the broader issues that they deal with, the macro, global issues.  Some objects are instilled with certain terms. (Blaise) I think that you’re question is spot-on in some instances.  We I see something, I usually have a visceral reation that says this is good, this is mediocre, this is s**t.  Some people develop this more or only in specific genres.  If you don’t have ability in a certain genre, it’s a failing of your’s.  I think these things are very deep.  And they defy description. (Chris) Education from a visual level doesn’t exist.  We learn how to read and write, but not to evaluate visually.  I think the visual is an element, but not at the top for an object.  Trends are more relevant.  We buy things then replace them because they’re not beautiful or fashionable or trendy.

Q: If I understood you correctly, when you see a design problem and find a solution, you have treated it functionally and aesthetics, but you sat on a comfortable chair and said it was crap?
A: (Tom) I’m not communicating very well.  For a designer, aesthetics are embedded in the question and process from the beginning.  It has to meet its requirements.  I’m looking at things in reverse order, that don’t follow the internal logic.
Q: Is that what you teach your students?
A: You don’t teach students.  You only participate in an inquiry.