THE SCIENCE OF RESILIENT SOLUTIONS

 

Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build for ever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone…and that men will say as they look upon the labour and wrought substance of them, “See! This our fathers did for us.” - John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1907.

​

Creativity isn't exclusive to the invention of original thoughts. Often, the design process resembles a collage, and we are called to appreciate and assemble beautiful, unoriginal ideas. A process of collage promotes the fearlessness to copy the invented, mutate local concepts, and appropriate them as proper resolves. The results can be very unexpecting but believably practical. 

 

Architecture is a solution business. Unlike the arts, it does not decorate first. Nor is it landscape design, it does not regionalize first. Unlike realty, it does not profit first. Architecture is a humanitarian service first.

​

The challenge is to build for ever - or at least for a very long time. Great ideas prevail because they can survive resiliently in multiple dimensions. Stretching our canvas beyond the familiar three dimensions, we ought to consider time and political finance as the fourth and fifth dimensions of design. Only then, may we offer the world resilient solutions.