Coming Up with a Concept
There’s always room for creativity.
The essence of being an architect is to be a cohesive thinker. You consider all the different factors that contribute to the development of your design. A concept proves that you are capable of transcending your thoughts and considerations into your design proposal.
Here are some suggestions that you can consider to help conjure a concept. They are stimulated by my own humble academic experience and research.
Inspire from the Site.
Inspiration from the site is a clever initial point. You can influence from the site’s geometry, the neighborhood’s history, or contextual layering. It helps develop the form, the bubble diagram, and the allocation of spatial distribution. The material selection can also be affected by studying the site closely. It can set the direction of your narrative.
Inspire from Artwork.
During my first year, my project was to design an abstract mood box based solely on poems by Edgar Ellen Poe. I had to inspire by his “The City in the Sea” poem. Our professors were teaching us to inspire from literature to develop our design. Now, I understand that they pushed us to search for conceptual inspiration from any background we choose or have leniency towards. I also remember a fellow older student who used paintings as inspirational lead to initiate her designs. It is insightful to witness artistic integration into the design process.
Think about your narrative thoroughly.
Your narrative, scenario, or story plays a pivotal role in directing your concept. It’s the setting that determines the elements it is composed of. If you are thorough, you will develop a coherent proposal that speaks of your character and facilitates solutions.
Be brave & Experiment.
When you are at school, you can freely experiment. You are allowed 100% creative freedom that you won’t have later.
Try out different approaches, concepts, and inspiration.
Take advice from your professor(s).
Show them your work’s process.
Explain your rationales clearly behind every decision you take.
They will direct you towards your intended vision if you openly explain your brainstorming.
Be careful with Pinterest.
I love Pinterest, but I have always been concerned about it.
It’s full of mind-blowing ideas that you may imitate rather than learn from. Since what you see on Pinterest is mostly the final result, not shots from the development stages, imitations tend to occur.
Nonetheless, you can’t just grab an image and work on it, as your “concept”.
You can only observe and see what captures your attention. Then close that window tab, forget all about it, and do your own work. It might influence you subtly, but it won’t be apparent.
We need to be careful with what our eyes see. Draw the line between inspiration and duplication.
The essence of design is to find a solution for an existing problem through the combined efforts of aesthetics and structure. If you configure a concept that dissolves that problem, your design proposal works even if it is considerably simple. The concept’s exceptionality isn’t a measure of its success.
Its practicality and applicability as a design proposal are the keys to its triumph.
