ON THEORY, PRACTICE AND MY 3/4 REVIEW

3/4 review interior view

In a desk crit after the 3/4 review, Enrique Walker gave me some interesting feedback about my design process and further steps to take. I was frustrated for not succeeding in explaining my project to the jury, that kept asking literal things such as "why is the building not camouflaged" or "where is the pixelation?." Walker's answer was that none of these is my main subject. 

As designers, we tend to divide our activities into two different categories: practice and theory. One of the main consequences to that is architects saying they do not like theory, or that they think it is not important, or even that we should leave it to the critics. This is probably due to the overall notion that theory is "difficult", "untouchable", or "too academic". What is often missed is that designing is inevitably about making decisions, which involves thinking, which is essentially theorizing. The very definition of theory in the Oxford Dictionary involves practice: "1.1. A set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based”. Tschumi illustrates their interdependence: "Kill theory and practice dies. Kill practice and theory dies. [...] Think theory is dead? Don’t worry: it will come back when everyone is bored with the hegemony of good feelings and widespread complacency. Practice is dead? Unlikely, unless a moratorium on building becomes a norm."

Once I came to the concept of the 3d labyrinth in my design process, I left behind the pixelation, and in the same way, once I came to the pixelation, I left behind the camouflage. That does not mean that these exercises were in vain, on the contrary: they were tools that helped me advance my theory through design. Now I have to look at my project as an outsider, understand what it is actually dealing with, its potentialities and weaknesses, and edit both: my discourse and project. Practice also injects ideas and perhaps it is in this feedback loop that design can truly be seen as research rather than just the representation of an idea conceived a priori of everything (that might be wrong!). 

Walker in his seminars keeps insisting on the idea that concepts are [too] formed after we design and suggesting "we learn by making". I would add a word to this statement: we learn by consciously making, conscious of our precedents and of our own designing methods (why do I chose or discard this or that option over another?). Here I believe is where we as designers have the opportunity of advancing ideas in which design and theory are by default connected.