ARCHITECTURAL EMPATHY

Design doesn't begin with a blank piece of paper, it begins with an open mind.

Before we can draw it, sculpt it, or build it, we have to imagine it. Many times the one skill that can best communicate an idea is the one we take for granted… our ability to talk about it, to put it into words. In essence to script a persons interaction and response to the environment they are going to occupy. The description is not about physical space but the emotional and intellectual experience of being there. Effectively done, that idea or image now exists in the mind of the listener and it starts to take on a life of its own.

From the chants of native shamans, the authors prose, or the screenwriters vision, stories have engaged audiences and stimulated them to think about their roles in relationships, family, and culture.

Architecture isn't just about buildings. It's also about the interaction, the scripting of the peoples lives that unfolds both within these structures and in the environments they frame.

No market is excluded from the benefits to be derived from delivering a total scripted experience. Design at home should nurture, at work it should stimulate, at school it should inspire, and at leisure it should engage the user.

Buildings alone can't deliver on these emotional levels unless they've been created with a broader purpose in mind - to encourage and reinforce certain behaviors within the user and thereby create an experience. Buildings aren't about art but the process to create them is. There are no arbitrary decisions in a well scripted design solution. Each element must support, reinforce a guiding premise otherwise its superfluous and should be discarded.

The results regardless of form or function should be a unique personal, memorable and authentic experience.