progress and generating design concepts

not much time this week, and not much to say. Generally things seem to have been going quite well, however, it almost seems as if something must go wrong soon. The onset of a dreadful ‘tudor’ themed project and the start of both nanjing projects has been at times trying, interesting, frustrating, boring, learning, exciting and most of all, political. Taiping nanlu, as a second-rate site, could prove less interesting than Nanjin XinJieKou, which could turn out fantastic. Comments from the client that the design previously produced by my current firm was not particularly very good until they started taking on people like me was an enormous boost to my confidence; not that one is required to sustain me, but rather a concern for the possible political struggles that may have arisen working with a more conservative principal.

Working up ideas for transferring the nanjing ribbon scheme to a new plan form have been both challenging and exciting - proving difficult at times to be continuously engaged, coming up with new idea after new idea. The latter half of this week has been an exercise in creativity and the process of generating new ideas. Two things have come to my attention in this respect. The first is that ideas seem to come to me whilst totally relaxed in bed, near sleep - and this has happened twice, whilst laying in bed, in exactly the same position both times. The second is that ideas seem to come in the office whilst either 1) in random free-association whilst relaxed and not trying too hard, and occassionally some key concepts will arise whilst in the toilet, or 2) after submersing myself into a particular set of precedent images, or 3) during a period of sustained concentration in which thoughts are simply left to flow, and ideas come out as the train of thought flows.