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Thinking process?

onlything

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
Lately, we've been introduced to new design process where you need to design first before gathering any data on the place, needs, inhabitants etc. of a site. When I normally design a building, I gather a set of needed data like noise and air pollution, temperature if I have a specifics concerning for example crops growth etc. However, this time we're tasked to do it in a completely different way - first, we create the shape of the building with the program and possible relations with the surroundings, people etc. without thinking about the site at all and only later do we gather needed data to modify it.

The thing is that I am too stuck in my thinking process – I simply can’t see the point, cannot understand it, the thought process needed for this. Like, what’s the point? Maybe you could help me understand what’s going on because it makes me completely stuck, as in ‘wait, so you need me to put boxes on other boxes to later discern what data I need to put boxes in different positions and finally start modifying and designing what I wanted to from the beginning?’. Okay, I’m officially stumped. It’s hard to find motivation for anything, not mentioning tasks that seem to me simply pointless.

Too stuck in my thinking again. The point is, how to get unstuck since I cannot proceed and improve without doing it?
 
don't think as fast i've learned this from having asthma from the anxiety -literally now I've got to breathe after I've thought something , I just can't do it at that speed .
 
Your "It makes no sense" makes sense to me too, so don't know what to suggest. It surely sounds -ss backwards. I hope this isn't for an actual job for your sake. Sorry I'm useless here.
 
People make lazy decisions all the time. It is not your fault if they want their work messed up.
 
Architecture class? Makes sense if it is for a class because modifying a design is something that happens a lot. You may start out with one set of what look like pretty good plans only to find out later that there is a sinkhole closer than anyone knew about at the start of the project and that the school board has changed their mind about even wanting a new cafeteria, ect... Sounds like the project you are being asked to do is an extreme exercise in adapting to new information and evolving ideas. Good luck whatever the project is for, I hope it's just homework.
 
To my reckoning, it's an interesting exercise which may have to do primarily with budgetary considerations.

The goal being to create a design- perhaps even a template of sorts that optimally considers inevitable and perhaps mostly unforeseen modifications which can so easily make construction costs skyrocket from the outset.

Yet in my own mind as I type this I'm thinking, "Is this really achievable?" o_O

Though I can see why such a "fluid" process might be so challenging to so many Aspie mindsets.
 
If I've understood what you've written correctly,

You're gethering data for the shape, style,, size, client requirements and so on first.

Using your already practised method on the inside and structure of the home first.

Picking that home up (in your minds eye) and placing it onto a plot of land, and then adjusting where necessary.

The consideration of human needs to develop design before mother nature's and surrounding environment, community?
 
Architecture class? Makes sense if it is for a class because modifying a design is something that happens a lot. You may start out with one set of what look like pretty good plans only to find out later that there is a sinkhole closer than anyone knew about at the start of the project and that the school board has changed their mind about even wanting a new cafeteria, ect... Sounds like the project you are being asked to do is an extreme exercise in adapting to new information and evolving ideas. Good luck whatever the project is for, I hope it's just homework.

That... makes sense. If I treat it just as an exercise for improvement of my modifying skills, it definitely stops being pointless and even starts being useful. I didn't think about it like this, so thank you. It's still not the most enthusiastic task for me but if I combine yours and @Beguiling Orbit 's advice, I may just get something more than 'putting boxes wrongly to realise that it's wrong and get to know which data to gather to make it right, even if it's the data I wanted to analyse from the beginning'.

Another approach to get you unstuck might be to take an existing data set and do the exact opposite of it.

I think this is how I will do it. I will start with a turn for a wrong data design and later modify it to fit the right data and all the data proceeding that point from then on.

To my reckoning, it's an interesting exercise which may have to do primarily with budgetary considerations.

The goal being to create a design- perhaps even a template of sorts that optimally considers inevitable and perhaps mostly unforeseen modifications which can so easily make construction costs skyrocket from the outset.

Yet in my own mind as I type this I'm thinking, "Is this really achievable?" o_O

Though I can see why such a "fluid" process might be so challenging to so many Aspie mindsets.

That would be interesting if we were given an outline for a budget and allowed to analyse this in this way but it's 'too detailed and unnecessary for now'. If it is now, when is 'then'? I think that I am mostly frustrated that I need to do something I consider wrong (with lacking/imagined/wrong data about most of the important particles) and then modify it working on a faulty base. Like building a house without fundaments in a wrong area and being surprised that we get water in our basement and unstable structure and trying to fix it afterwards. I prefer to do something right from the get-go and modify as needed later if new data comes, not putting something on blindly and whine that it doesn't work... I mean, I can see a point in an exercise now but it's rather frustrating.

Especially that even with other design exercise you still need to regularly modify every aspect.

If I've understood what you've written correctly,

You're gethering data for the shape, style,, size, client requirements and so on first.

Using your already practised method on the inside and structure of the home first.

Picking that home up (in your minds eye) and placing it onto a plot of land, and then adjusting where necessary.

The consideration of human needs to develop design before mother nature's and surrounding environment, community?

This is almost like I normally work but the task itself is different. Let's say that you need to design a conference centre. You have overall dimensions but you know nothing about the site, overall needs, if you need an additional workshop space, if there is something special for this centre(is it a conference centre for politicians? researchers working on new crops in the same space? economical managers? public hall?). Normally I gather data I need. If I build a house, I will talk to my client about their expectations, budget, do site analysis to understand the landscape, if there are any restrictions, water works etc. If I design a conference centre for researchers traveling from around the world I will probably include hotel area if the budget allows it but I will obviously use this budget for something else if it is for managers from the nearby astrophysics company, like for example a more technologically advanced presentation space.

What they want me to do is to design before I know anything at all and this is what frustrates me because later I will have to work on most possibly faulty base.
 
Both architects and engineers are inevitably at the will of a civil bureaucracy that can force them to make sudden and even outrageous modifications during the entire construction process.

A process that quite literally killed my father who once was a very prominent engineer. Who spent more time pouring over legal battles than blueprints. Far beyond frustrating, it proved to be lethal to my father as the process gave him two heart attacks, only to retire and have two more. With his job being replaced by no less than three people. One who also had a heart attack, while the other two eventually resigned in disgust.

It may be a game to some, but it's one that always seems to favor the bureaucrats.
 
This is good practice for your professional career. You will be asked to do countless tasks that are (or appear to be) pointless. In those situations, you can try to convince your boss that it's pointless. If you can't, then you just do the pointless task and realize that the real, underlying point is to earn a paycheck at the end of the week. :)
 
Try making your goal about achieving certain shapes or colors or other not-necessarily functional aspects, maybe? Something about appearance only.

If you can't decide on anything, I suggest doing this:

1. Write down a bunch of aesthetic attributes and random design specs on little bits of paper -- one possibility for one variable per bit of paper.

2. Fold/crumple the bits of paper so that you can't see any of the writing, put the bits of paper into a big jar, and shake them up.

3. Close your eyes and pull out a bit of paper from the jar-- one at a time, until you've got enough variables filled to get started.

If you are worried about pulling out multiple choices for a single variable (and then having to decide between them with no basis for your decision), maybe do one variable at a time in the jar -- or use multiple jars, one jar for each variable. Or go with the first choice for each variable that you pull out of the jar, so if you pull out a choice for that same variable again you just ignore it.
 
Thanks for the example :)

Would it be like someone asking me to make a collar for their dog.

"Can you make me a dog collar please?"

Whilst many dog collars follow a similar process in their construction, I'm missing vital information to be able to tailor the collar to the dog and please the buyer.

Information such as size, weight, breed, neck length and circumference, light, medium, heavy use? Leather, material or polypropylene?, 3/8", 1", 2", buckle or contoured quick release, usage of collar- working dog or companion animal? Fully waterproof and hard wearing or mainly for show,
That's before we get onto colour and pattern and depth, any allergies or neck/spine problems.


If I'm understanding you correctly, it's the equivalent of me submitting drawn plans to to buyer of a generic dog collar (with no personal requirements factored onto the design- because I wasn't given that information)

The buyer will provide this information after seeing the plans?
Chances are I've just wasted my time messing around with a generic collar when we could have designed and built the perfect collar together in the first instance by sharing information.
?
 
Thanks for the example :)

Would it be like someone asking me to make a collar for their dog.

"Can you make me a dog collar please?"

Whilst many dog collars follow a similar process in their construction, I'm missing vital information to be able to tailor the collar to the dog and please the buyer.

Information such as size, weight, breed, neck length and circumference, light, medium, heavy use? Leather, material or polypropylene?, 3/8", 1", 2", buckle or contoured quick release, usage of collar- working dog or companion animal? Fully waterproof and hard wearing or mainly for show,
That's before we get onto colour and pattern and depth, any allergies or neck/spine problems.


If I'm understanding you correctly, it's the equivalent of me submitting drawn plans to to buyer of a generic dog collar (with no personal requirements factored onto the design- because I wasn't given that information)

The buyer will provide this information after seeing the plans?
Chances are I've just wasted my time messing around with a generic collar when we could have designed and built the perfect collar together in the first instance by sharing information.
?

You got it right. The collar you need to create can turn out to be completely wrong since for example your customer's dog may be of mixed heritage with untypical body build and as you mentioned problems with skin, maybe allergies or accident's damage... So in the end what you created can turn out completely useless and imagine that later you need to modify the generic collar to suit the specific dog. It will hardly ever be as good as what it could be with good, solid basics in the end.
 

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