fallacy of form - economics of creativity IV

[The Final Part of the Economics of Creativity Series]

Began with Fallacy of Form - Economics of Creativity I

Followed by Fallacy of Form - Economics of Creativity II

Continued from Fallacy of Form - Economics of Creativity III

This economics of creativity is an underlying force that could spell the solution to the puzzle of astute designing, by including the human condition as a factor in the process we can hope to inform and reform our design to suit more humane translations. Interpretation is always a subjective matter, but to totally ignore the epistemological would be looking right through the elephant in this room. Why can’t a space be both economical and efficient without it being boring and devoid of personality? Why can’t a form that’s emotional, distinct and exciting also be user-friendly and welcoming? Are the concepts of form and function too distant and antithetical that one has to forego the other to become complete? Or have we, as designers, simply become too egotistic and lazy to chip in the effort, dispensing one and never both?

Diligence comes with discipline, and as visionaries of the imagined space, the reality that this space must envelop relies on a designer’s capacity to empathize with the needs of a client. Creativity has its part in this, but so does restraint and ingenuity. A beautiful space cannot be completely so without efficiency and workability, is it not that man must mold his reality to better his life? How can we profess our acuity when the translation fails in improving the human condition? Can the iconic improve efficiency? Will the stale and soulless inspire action? There has to be a balance somewhere, a point of equilibrium, precarious and exigent it may be. Insolence is our enemy here, as egos go. True, there is a complex psychological dynamic that leads to a designer and a client aiming for permanence, of creating a structure that will stand as a tangible testament to their ideal, a brilliant beacon extending a man’s ego.

The practice of architecture is inherently temporal and transient. Spaces are redefined as users shift interest and need, new buildings come and go as often as money changes hands. We inhabit a world that is constantly in transition and evolution. What we are tasked with, as designers, is to ride this tempest of change with the skill of solution, and the bravado of veteran strategists. In the end, what we produce must have the mutualism of method, a marriage of material and of morphology suitable to man. Because we cannot expect our designs to stand the test of time, to weather senescence and negate nature, we have to rely on the concepts and ideas to provide an experience of space that is effective for the moment, efficient for the need, and empathic for the user.

All that will be left beyond the passing of urbanity’s extravagance and decadence is our ideas, the concepts that lead to solutions, the distilled thoughts that come from disciplined analysis, the theories that become philosophies, which potentially can change the world as we perceive, peruse and propel it. Our lasting legacy as design professionals is rarely the corporeal construct, but often the creative conceptions.

Original image of header is from here.

The first Fallacy of Form is here.

Fallacy of Form - Verdant Voice is here.

Fallacy of Form - Esthetica is here.