>>Culture of the Design Process.. [wABI-sABI].

Previously I have refered to culture within the process of design, particularly that architecture is a pursuit that has the potential to be of high cultural value, and how the design process is vital to why architecture could be viewed in such a way. In these previous blog entries I reflected on architecture being a very singular ‘art form’; a sole person’s response to a design brief. In the blog regarding the Japanese tea ceremony I discussed the Japanese receptiveness towards very individualist modern architecture, the essence of wabi-sabi could be seen as a direct correlation to this. /Illustrated/ /here/ is the potential for a wabi-sabi approach to the development of information technologies which could easily translate into a new process for ‘development’ of the built environment. A design process that adheres to such ideas would by highly user-centric, and constantly refreshing itself to achieve the best outcome for the problem. Though while this may apply to the ideas of wabi-sabi, though I believe built outcomes may have an aesthetic that does not.

/////The box of with internal and external influences/////

But rather than to limit thought to this and expand on a wabi-sabi idea, I believe we would see an increase in the discourse between architecture and other disciplines, and more importantly, a diverse range of other fields that seem incompatible. /Here/ is a presentation on the idea of reciprocity between architecture, animation and art, among other things. The term ‘wabi-sabi’ itself is the fusion of two diverse ideas; it promotes relations between things that may seem incompatible. In my identity+visualization blog entry I told of how I would like a links between architecture and other arts, or at least influence each other. This sort of reciprocity is not visible in buildings such as the sukiya but wabi-sabi ideas, I believe, promote this sort of unusual dialogue between different things.

From this, I considered the reverse of this sort of process; which at a fundamental level could mean a highly collaborative design phase, with all participants on an equal level of importance. As Engel (1964) alluded to, much of society is embracing collective thought which is apparent in web-based collaborative research such as wikipedia or any other wiki. These collaborations are good in my opinion, though the success of such internet communes, I think, exists in the anonymity of the user. The /wiki/ approach works when people see each post as a differing view; a collection of statements and ideas that may be differing, factual or fictional. From here people can judge each post as separate, and form their own opinion. A design process following these frameworks would be haphazard and end up being compromise of ideas; a space containing several posts of ideas and opinion. There would not be a well conceived final product but a fusion of many ideas that ends up effectively being a lowest common denominator. More appropriate would be to see a space as an individual post, not a page.

Once again, the subject returns to the issue of the social perception of what architecture should be, but also more difficult to gauge would be a definitive answer on what architects think concerning the ideas of collaboration and individuality.