INNOCENT QUESTIONS 思無邪手記

A reflective journal with sketches from design developing stage

Introduction

”When I become rich, I am going to have a luxury apartment!”

This general dream in the country I come from just gives me odd feelings.

Obviously in the end, only a tiny bunch of people will get their dreams. However, I felt that my media surrounding has been dominated by this kind of luxury dreamers.

I believe there must be a space that everything is more beautiful to live in rather than being surrounded by famous brand furniture. That is why I began looking for designs that reveal the fun and poetry of living I hadn’t found before.

“Advertising could be dangerous!”

Continually, there were some voices alongside speaking to me.

My tutor told me so at the very beginning of term maybe due to my former degree in Advertising:

“DON’T just work for generating a concept,” he continued, “and DON’T even look for any concept to sell your design!”

I thought that he really knows how things work in my field.

What I should do is to go after my dream and then find my way to have it in my house. But at first, I really didn’t get any single clue to achieve that.

So I followed the rule of the game to discover delightful feelings that the house gives me.

Infant

I come from a country, which doesn’t have the lower ground floor so prevailing like here in London.

So I felt truly excited when I opened up the window and had the rough pavestone way or the lively garden views extending ahead right in front of my chest!

Rather than concept, the space was forming some potential that brought me beautiful imaginations.

Exploring

Tutor said, ”Keep exploring!”

I knew I should do it, but hadn’t figured out HOW.

It cost me almost one month playing my models with the relationship of upper and lower ground, I still got no idea how to connect the things I have got with my whole space.

Things became different till I changed my approach and drew some imaginary scenes of the site, I started to catch what I feel beautiful and what the unknown bits of my dream are.

Innocent Questions

It was when I hadn’t been clear about what to do that the most suffering time to get myself move forward. And I had known that things wouldn’t come to me if I just sit there and expect.

So at the beginning — or all the time, maybe — to push things forward, I paid my attention on images I like and tried to analyze my own feelings as well as to imitate the drawings. But it ended up with no any help from them. It seemed like that I was looking for my way of working or an extraordinary viewing point, but gradually I came to realize that my effort didn’t base upon any particular question!

With no questions to think about, all these ways of analyzing are too innocent to help me out. I shall pick out my mission I am facing, then little by little, gain stronger power to solve it. Therefore later, I tried to work on my written questions.

“It’s all about inhabitation!”

With the dream carefully brought up, I could do numerous typologies to go for it. However, only after that I was told to think about my living functions could my dream start to come closer to the reality. A good deal of questions should I ask, but I got to get the right one to begin with.

Think Architecturally

With little architectural knowledge, I felt difficult to turn my imaginary scene into the language of space, that is, to think architecturally. Therefore it was really inspiring when I was introduced about the term of ‘datum level’.

It gave me a whole new vision to view my world! Then my drawings and model both changed, and what’s more, the differences between ‘before’ and ‘after’hugely impressed me.

This separated my house into two different languages of architecture and furniture. It also striked directly to a question haunting me for so long: ”how to deal with architecture, interior design and furniture at the same time? ”

And in terms of my project: ”how could I define the game to let architecture and furniture play together in my house?”

This was it!

Looking Back

Sometimes I went through my developing pages to see the progress and was shocked by those early drawings that have got the quality I need at that moment. To me, it seemed like some dreams had been there awaiting a proper timing to stick out again.

I am not sure about what this could mean.

Maybe I come across some similar questions once more,

or maybe I was trapped in an endless circle of myth.

Maybe there were something I didn’t fully understand jumping out again, or maybe it was truly what I dreamt about though I hadn’t known well then.

Whatever it is. Whenever this happened, it gave myself a feeling of that I have got different way to think over my former ideas as if I am having a dialogue with my drawings!

Make a Book

This is like either an order or a spell.

For it not only pushed me to think over how to make my work look like a more finished design, but also pushed me even further to draw the most beautiful work I could achieve to make itself tell story.

It formed another benchmark for making decisions.

Conclusion

For several reasons, I enjoyed working under my project so much, but I found the most important one is for that the process makes me reflect about a great deal of my real life, past and present. To me, at least, it tells that I was happy to be with it, for I really got plenty of time to get along well with myself.

That makes the learning process along full of my little changes. And the changes are quite related to how I treat and see living matters. As I said beforehand, I am looking for the work that reminds me the fun and poetry in living, what I am now learning is the way to sense the dreams behind the interior designs. I think I am on the way and gaining power!