The discipline of ideas

However smart, original or clever your ideas are in your head, without the conscious effort to externalise ideas they remain like bright, shiny sport cars with nothing to drive on. The power is there but the car is going nowhere. Indeed, ideas with no wheels!

Book review: Peter Cook Drawing

For my review of Peter Cook: 'Drawing - the motive force of architecture' (Wiley 2008), see www.drawing.org.uk

Ideas shape the world

The practice, learning and knowledge of design have been significantly transformed by new media and communication technologies. Yet behind new technologies lie ideas which not only direct innovation and experimentation but also form designer identities and personalities.

Ideamotion

When we generate and communicate ideas we also generate and communicate emotions. And whether the various emotional states are labelled "cool", "hot" or "so-so", there's necessarily emotion in ideation because an idea reflects subjectivity. This emotional flux of ideation I call Ideamotion.

Sketcherly ways of designing

Sketching out ideas, or conceptual sketching, embodies both active and reflective activities of a rational, intuitive or sensing nature that reveal insights into the processes of design. This suggests that conceptual sketching is much more than mark making on paper, from verbal and non-verbal modes to two- and three- dimensional gestural ways of expressing ideas in physical or virtual space. Sketching by other means, then, broadens the notion of sketching well beyond the traditional pencil sketch. This I call sketcherly ways of designing.

Idein

Plato, Shakespeare and Goethe, to name but a few, assigned significant value to dreams. And Strindberg (1849-1912), the writer, playwright and painter, famously said: 'I dream - therefore I am'. But dreams suspend wilful reality. We cannot tell the full meaning of dreams until their reflections materialise before the objective sense. And so with ideas - they have to be externalised. Indeed, I ideate - therefore I am!

Realising Ideas

Although design ideas are rooted in thinking and feeling, and as such can remain abstract, to make them concrete ideation becomes a wilful act similar to the interaction artists have with their material. That is, in the interaction between brain-eye-hand and material ideas are realised.

Experiencing ideation

Ideation might suggest an overly emphasis on "thinking" rather than "doing". But it is important to recognise that purposeful and productive forms of ideation are grounded in knowledge and experience, both general and specific. Subject knowledge and life experience, then, make for fertile ground in which first thoughts and ideas germinate.

Ideation impulse

The impulse to ideate in design is the sudden and strong urge to act on external and internal stimuli that result in something new that is both purposeful and productive.

Acting out ideas

In his book An Actor Prepares, Stanislavski (1863-1938), the seminal drama teacher, makes the analogy between acting and travelling. Similarly, a parallel can be drawn between designing and travelling, or design as a journey ("the design process").

If you've made a journey, then, you will recall the many successive changes that take place both in what you feel and what you see. And so in the studio experience. That is, by moving forward your design project, from idea to object or artefact, you find yourself constantly in new and different situations, moods, imaginative surroundings, and the externals of production. Moreover, in the process of "acting out" your ideas along physical lines, you come into contact with new people and get to know their needs and desires. Along the way, then, you create meaning through design by understanding and empathising with the culture you serve.

Stanislavski. 1980. An Actor Prepares. London: Methuen

Sharing your ideas ....

Leonardo da Vinci was apparently very paranoid about others stealing his ideas and taking credit for his discoveries. So paranoid that he felt compelled to disguise all his writings in mirror writing. And yet, though Leonardo's artistic genius was appreciated at his time, much of his other work as scientist and inventor remained unnoticed until much later, by which time his discoveries had already been invented.

When you have an idea it's very tempting to keep it to yourself. Besides, you have to work on it until it's ready to be shared by others. It has to be developed far enough. Then you have to protect it - make it your intellectual property. Then you can only talk to people about it secretively in case they should run off and do their own hit product or copy of your idea. Consequently, in so many cases, no matter how good the idea is, nothing comes of it. It's so secret that it doesn't happen and nobody benefits.

The other approach is to give it all away for free. Is it not better if somebody uses the ideas and makes them work now, even if they copy or 'steal' them , than be 'discovered' 100s of years later?

IDEO, the product development firm recognise this with one of their 'mantras': "Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone inventor." In other words get out there and try it, be open with it, improve it, develop it and spread the word - rather than keep it to yourself and it ultimately never happen.

Modelling ideas

As a vehicle of experimentation and discovery, sketch models are engaged as a creative tool in generating and developing conceptual ideas during the early stages of the design process.

This active, exploratory use of models reflects how physical manipulation, and be it cardboard, plastics, wood or clay, can expose faults and weaknesses in 3D conceptualisation that would never reveal themselves on paper.

Moreover, through physical manipulation we have time to reflect on what we are doing ('reflection-in-action'; Schon 1983) - and the more we engage our senses the more we increase the learning opportunity.

Indeed, the tactile experience through physical modelling enables us to understand things that we cannot just understand with our eyes.

Schon, D. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner. Temple-Smith. London

Pretty ideas?

In his architectural design, Frank Gehry's most immediate references are painting and sculpture: 'I search out the work of artists, and use art as a means of inspiration. I try to rid myself ... of the burden of culture and look for new ways to approach the work. I want to be open-ended. There are no rules, no right or wrong. I'm confused as to what's ugly and what's pretty'. [Frank Gehry: "The Search for a 'No Rules' Architecture", Architectural Record June 1976, p. 95]'.

This has not, however, stopped Gehry from evoking the architectural past, for example, the reference to Greek classical columns in the Loyola Law School [CA: Los Angeles. 1981-84]. Or, Japanese classical architecture and its wood craft aesthetic which has an immediate appeal to him.

Any idea?

So what does it take to come up with a new idea? Do you search for ideas, or do you find them? Are they outcomes of logic or serendipitous discovery? Discuss.