There is fashion business and there is haute couture.. there is real estate business and there is haute architecture.. Haute couture is more of a known phenomena, although vague and hard to define - yet evasive magic of it feels so familiar to many..
What about architectural "haute creations"?.. What phenomena is it? Where does the magic lie?
As in all things in life, parallels abound.. in both fashion and architecture it all starts with an idea and a concept. Design starts with a sketch.. All both fashion and architect designers do sketches. You can start with a sketch and then you have to follow the sketch.. This is the dress, this is the front, the back of it, this is the fabric, the colour.. you do it! Boom! Same in architecture: this is the house, this is the facade, the living and sleeping quarters, these are the materials, the colours, the spec.. Boom!.. Job's finished!.. or is it?.. For any mass production process, be it in fashion or in real estate that is where the design and creativity usually ends.. design drawings get produced to every little detail and get implemented by production. End of story!
Well now, welcome to the next level: In both haute couture or architecture, sketch and design drawing is only the beginning of the process of creation, not the end. Life is not the facade, front and the back. Life is everything in between the front and the back.. In fashion, the creator has to listen to the body and the fabric, listen to the colour, have to look in the mirror and see the reflections.. In architecture likewise, the creator has to listen to the nature and the body alike, feel the energies of elements, listen to textures and colours, listen and look at the reflections of one's feeling while immersed within a certain habitat in the process of creation..
The whole process is existential and holistic. One can never achieve it from sketching and drawing only. When you sketch - you produce conceptually! When you start to create and play with elements, spaces, textures, fabrics, colours, a long and tedious process of change, of trial and error - then you and your creations become desirable and outstanding! Of course, the process of creating a house is a long and multilayered one. The ideas keep getting sketched, drawn and tested, get drawn again, and tested again.. plans and drawings get modified a lot of times again and again.
Now I have a reputation for changing my mind a lot. And I thought that I was kind of crazy at first. How come I am so indecisive?.. It took me a while to understand that changes are the crayons of design! It takes many crayons to create a perfectly balanced piece of work. In contemporary art, when does the painter know that his painting is finished? It can be endless! But the moment the painting doesn't ask to be changed and the moment a house doesn't ask to be changed, I know it's finished.
I don't duplicate anything, because even with one completely finished successful property I would do the next one differently. Even though they would be designed by the same architect using the similar materials, textures and other elements. It is in the process of implementation that the final look and feel of each property takes shape and it acquires its soul! So I think that giving the attention, the passion, the love to details, to proportions, to finishes and their combinations, to the volume, - you work with the people who are making it - you feel their energy and perfume in the final product of creation.. All, that is not tangible contributes and counts: the skills, the personal touch, the warmth of hands who shape and mold the architectural creation into finished reality! We are a small team so I need to have a personal touch with the people I work with, be it designer architects, consultants, suppliers, contractors or working craftsmen. It's all about dialogue. It's all about the process.
At all stages of a project I bring in the team and we work on pieces. I keep trying, keep reflecting and keep changing until the piece asks for change no more. It's a living process and it's magic. This is the time when everyone brings and contributes something. Someone brings an idea or a solution, someone brings new materials, someone suggests a new colour combination.. This is the way we work. It is like composing a symphony I guess.. To me that is the only intuitively known way of creating something truly outstanding and timeless.. be it an haute couture dress or a haute architecture piece.
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