Dan very kindly took me to a talk by Bjarke Ingels last night. It was very good. I liked the architecture, but I'm not really qualified to talk about it. However, it was really interesting to hear about the interior of another sort of business - it seemed there were quite a few things that BIG do, that I've seen in other good creative businesses.(Including, unfortunately, lots of horrible flash on the website.)
1. They don't seem to be precious about ideas. They don't cherish them, regard them as valuable or hard to have. They have lots and lots of them and then prune, recombine and mutate. He talked about this as 'excess and selection'. You have an excess of ideas and then pick the ones that seem to fit the problem. (And you keep them all, because they might come in handy next time.)
2. The work environment is part of the process. Each project is documented on the walls of the office as it's being done. So anyone in the office can see what's going on, and contribute. It all seems to be a very open and collaborative practice.
3. There's a charismatic front-man. Mr Ingels himself is a great presenter, funny, smart, personable, and above all, convincing. He's great with powerpoint, managed to talk for more than an hour about architecture without any baffling jargon and is clearly someone you'd want to spend time with.
4. They're happy to be opportunistic and pragmatic. Their didn't seem to be a lot of big theories, just a desire to get good stuff actually made. They're as adept at engineering the political/client reality to get something done as they are at making the building. If you need to put a huge picture of the client in the lobby to get the building made, then do that, and don't do it grudgingly, do it well, make it good, make it a postive.
5. They use video really well. They make a lot of films that make their projects understandable, and feel real. And use music well to add that convincing emotional depth.
