The Seventh Level
Designing Your Extraordinary LifeBy Joe HefferonBalboa Press
Copyright © 2012 Joe Hefferon
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4525-5264-4Contents
Acknowledgements...........................................ixThe Architecture of Human Endeavor.........................1How To Use This Book.......................................9Purpose....................................................13Why Architecture? Why You?.................................17Level One - Room for Ideas.................................31Level Two - Precision has Purpose..........................57Level Three - The Big Hairy Plans..........................69Level Four - Your Foundation...............................95Level Five - The Structural Engineer.......................111Level Six - Systems of Achievement.........................123Level Seven - The Accidental Architect.....................143Ultima Cogitatio...........................................155Appendix of Architects.....................................165
Chapter One
Level One Room for Ideas
"The great thing about being an architect is you can walk into your dreams." – Harold E. Wagoner
The idea room is where it all begins. Stand in wonder before your first level, the starting point to a life less ordinary. How does it feel to be in the place where visions take shape? For most of your adult life you have wanted to do something, but didn't know how to begin. So start by changing your frame of reference. Since this book is a big fat homage to architecture, let's build something marvelous. In an interview with ArchDaily.com, Eugene Kohn of KPF Architecture spoke about what goes on inside of buildings. "Our goal as architects is to create buildings that inspire people to do whatever it is in that space they need to do. That inspiration comes from within the building as much as from the way it looks from the outside." If you imagine your starting point as a functioning place, you can see it as a base of operations for ideas. This is really what the idea room represents.
The idea room is a place to search for what you need to start your mission, a workshop for your ideas to take shape. Like Tesla's laboratory, it's a place to let the sparks fly. It's a numinous haven with direct access to stored ideas, windows open to every angle, unopened doors and secret desires. It is a place for you to work on your operating systems, your methodology of thought, emotional introspection; a place to find guidance and courage. Within the idea room you can solicit mentors and collaborate with friends.
It's your place now. Own it. Relish it. Believe in it. "A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image." - Joan Didion.
Level One is where you determine your direction, a survey of your talents, resources and aspirations. Architecture is a reflective art form. The architect thinks of design in the aesthetic sense as well as the impact of the particular design. The architecture must respectfully represent and make peace with the physical place while artfully transforming the metaphysical sensations of experience, space and light. Every architectural work, from lofts in Chicago to cityscapes in Nanjing, begins with an idea. In terms of process; the idea is the first working element of architecture.
Architects have a sort of poetic idiom to their language. In his book, "Idea and Phenomena", Steven Holl describes the `getting started' in perfect architect-speak, "In each project we begin with information and disorder, confusion of purpose, program ambiguity, an infinity of materials and forms. All of these elements, like obfuscating smoke, swirl in a nervous atmosphere. Architecture is a result of acting on this indeterminacy.
To open architecture to questions of perception, we must suspend disbelief, disengage the rational half of the mind, and simply play and explore. Reason and skepticism must yield to a horizon of discovery. Doctrines cannot be trusted in this laboratory. Intuition is our muse. The creative spirit must be followed with happy abandon. A time of research precedes synthesis."
From your idea room you will work to accomplish two things: generate a great idea (Levels 1 & 2) and explore ways to make it feasible (Level 3). It will help in your search for an idea to understand the reasons behind them.
You may feel a restlessness, a need to achieve, an irksome sense that something is missing. You might be wrestling with thoughts of inadequate professional enlightenment. We have all felt this sense of hollowness when we start asking Alfie what it's all about, and since nature abhors a vacuum, we consciously and unconsciously seek to fill the void. We get temporary satisfaction from spending money on junk we don't need or partying but they don't satiate us on an abiding level. What's driving you in these random but short-lived surges of activity? By focusing on what may be missing we can build something other than a headstone at the end of our rut.
Architects don't just generate ideas for no reason. There is a client to suit or a competition to win. Certainly they have a bank of potential design images, their `someday' watercolors that appear on cerebral sketchpads, but they have one slight advantage over us on their idea platforms; the client or competition gives them a jumping off point. It may be broad in scope or imprecise, but it's something: a museum, a residence, a gymnasium, an office complex or a town square. They may have nothing more to go on but a phrase or a term of purpose, yet they begin.
Your idea room needs a few jumping off points as well. Your jump-point is your `why'. It's not the same as purpose; we've already discussed that force. Your `why' is this thing you feel you need to do or a specific objective you need to accomplish.
What is aching, missing, unfinished, unresolved or underutilized? Do you simply need money for a new home, a college bill or a swell car? Do you want to leave a legacy? Do you need to change professions, start a non-profit organization, open a business or finally feel fulfilled on a personal level? Your answers to these questions will be your jump-points. It is from those points that you will generate ideas.
The road from your bland existence into the architectural setting is an exploration of the natural curiosity we are endowed with. Color, form, space, light, emotion and texture become pathways to enlightenment. Architects are comfortable in the creative realm in part because it is inherent to their make-up, but also because they are prepared to be there. They learned some creativity skills during their formal education, but developed them out of a need to solve challenges, such as those presented by engineering or when striking a balance between style and utility. They have learned how simple shapes are starting points for complex structures. They have practiced the fundamentals and thus acquired the expertise that gives them the backbone to try new challenges.
Anthony Garetti, an award-winning producer of television commercials, told me he's become more creative because of the time he spends studying other creative people in his field. He has literally watched thousands of hours of films which have helped to build an intricate platform for his own ideas. Ideas in motion are Garetti's business just as buildings are the business of architects. Each profession has jump-points, and you must identify yours, which is the reason that homing in on your `why' is so important.
Wonder
"Architecture is not based on concrete and steel and the elements of the soil. It is based on wonder." - Daniel Libeskind.
Seeing what other don't, asking what others won't, deflecting limitations, seeking rather than accepting, and scrutinizing your most compelling aspiration; these are some of the thought processes that are used as tools for shaping your first stone. Question everything, not just to be contrary, but to be curious. Welcome radical ideas. Andy Rooney always asked, "Did you ever wonder why ...?"
Embrace your capacity to wonder. One of my favorite quotations from Einstein is, "He who can no longer pause to wonder, and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed."
Revisit the unencumbered brain of your childhood. When my son Jack let go of his balloon on a soggy September morning and we watched it rise high into a sycamore tree, I knew it was a goner. Jack wondered if maybe a friendly pterodactyl could come by and pick him up to go fetch it. Well why not? A child wonders because he has no references or anchors. (Anchors in this cognitive sense would be his first understanding of any concept; afterwards, all other meanings ascribed to this thing would be compared to his first learning of it). He has no parameters, so he has no limitations on what he may ask about. He hasn't yet learned to feel silly that he may be asking a dumb question. He is not embarrassed about his lack of understanding. He hasn't acquired enough knowledge to help him relate new concepts to those already confirmed, in order to understand this new thing before him. He doesn't judge his ignorance; he satisfies it.
We learn by building associations. However, our grown-up brains are cluttered with misinformed references and unfortunately we've come to accept them as the right answers. It's what cognitive science calls the primacy effect; that which is learned first is learned best. Most of the time, we don't even know why we know something, we just do. But a child doesn't `just know' yet, so he continues to ask questions. We didn't need cognitive scientists to tell us this. Socrates said, "Wisdom begins in wonder."
So Jack asks why, a lot. He asks where did it come from and why. He asks who did it and why. He wants to know why I do things. This is how he establishes patterns and begins to build his network of knowledge. When we lose our innate sense of wonder, we diminish our capacity to learn new ideas.
When Frank Lloyd Wright said, "Freedom is from within," he spoke to the concept of self-directed competence. Each of us has access to opportunity and the potential to direct our own success, so we can enjoy the freedom of professional, personal and financial abundance. The harder you work on personal development, the more choices you create. Personal development is like currency; it doesn't buy happiness, but it can give you options. The real freedom comes from recognizing your own talents and using them unconstrained by self-imposed limitations. They are not permanent limits as you may have previously thought but problems to be solved.
Architects are problem solvers. In the pursuit of solutions they are inventive and imaginative. They funnel their education and experience into ingenious ideas. The first of your seven levels and by comparison, the architectural process, is a wholly right-brained, creative escapade; one of sensation and emotion. It is the level of distinctive concepts, exploration, mystery and ingenuity. It's about new vistas and a forward thinking.
The architect's vision is one of either genesis or resurrection. They may be presented with a blank space to fill, or they may stand before a neighborhood rife with decay, but see rebirth. They see what we don't, but we can develop the habits of thinking on a grander scale. In the elegant words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him, the image of a cathedral."
What is your image? What's your story? What do you see in the rock pile of your ordinary life? Thoughts are free; have as many as you want.
Some of us see decay or rubble as depressing or an excuse to ask, "Why bother?" Architects see neglect as an impetus for change. They see what could yet be not what should have been. They see opportunity, not a reason to judge. They work on a variety of landscapes from empty lots to blank paper, from neglected homes to forgotten waterfronts. Every space is a beginning regardless of what does or does not occupy it.
This is a chapter about getting started. It's about letting go and letting creativity happen. It's about refocusing old ideas and generating new ones. But what if all the great ideas are taken? Do new ideas have a place in your life? That's an odd question.
Maybe you are looking afar for something you haven't yet imagined, even though your unrealized ideas are right here. David Chipperfield, who speaks with the serenity of confidence says, "I think that often people are looking beyond the horizon for something which sometimes is right in from of them. I think in architecture I've always learned; do what's in front of you. It's somehow giving it importance and taking it seriously. It's a good way of approaching architecture." And it's also a good way of approaching this misguided idea that you must do something of world renown to feel a sense of accomplishment. This book is about being extraordinary, a little beyond ordinary, and ordinary is right in front of you, waiting for your stamp to make it your own and leave it better than you found it.
A vision has two core elements. One is creativity and the other is specificity. An entrepreneur named Joe Gentle once told me that most people don't get anything out of life because they don't want anything. "Uh ..." I answered profoundly, "What?"
Then I composed myself and said, "Of course people want things. They want stuff, a better life, and buckets of money." He responded by pointing out that my answer was exactly what he was referring to. People say they have desires, but they express them in vague terms, such as "stuff" and "a better life." They don't decide on exactly what they want so they never figure out how to go about acquiring it. They lack focus which means they lack direction which means they can't develop a plan which means they always fail in their half-hearted attempts to improve some aspect of their lives in hopes that it will reveal a more clearly defined outlook on where they are headed.
We make decisions to take one path over another or none at all. Our decisions will define our future. But in order make those decisions; we must know what our options are.
How do you know what your options are? How do you choose one path over another? Where do you want to be in three months, one year or five years? Where and how do you begin?
Anthony Garetti works with all sorts of imaginative people in making television commercials. He says that sometimes you have to test a variety of ideas before you settle on one you like, but the important thing is personal triumph is, "to try and do something you've never done before, whether it's gardening or working with clay or theater or any number of pursuits. You may try a lot of different things over a long period of time before suddenly realizing, `Hey, I like to paint.' It may take some time but, so what? Whatever it is; it doesn't matter, just do something now, something different, something that stretches you."
What do you love to do? What jacks you up? What, besides a drill sergeant, can get you out of bed at 0530 on a Saturday? What is unfinished or shortchanged? Are you starting something new, like a franchise or a career? Are you learning to play an instrument? Are you seeking optimal performance? Are you working to become a social entrepreneur or save Atlantic sea turtles?
Or is this a renewal? Are you regenerating? Are you beginning a new life or rebuilding a tattered one? Yes, architects see living experiences in empty spaces, but they also have a mindset that differs from the insular outlook of those who merely sit on the porch and watch what happens. One of my mentors, Eric Worre, calls such people tourists. He says, "You can either make things happen or you can be a tourist and wonder what happened."
I am no genius, but I can ponder. I can imagine. I can carry a journal and I can record my thoughts and so can you. Let's all start by overcoming our fear of where our own brains might lead us. You may not be Benjamin Franklin, but you have astounding potential. You don't have to solve world hunger, cure diphtheria or discover the North Pole; we already know where it is. But you simply want to feel that you contributed, (don't you?) that you accomplished something a little special, that you actually acted upon an idea. One small victory will inspire you to try another. Just do something.
Let's say you want to be a chef, but you're obligated to that stifling clerical job. Try this. Get up for a week at 3:30 in the morning and drive to a fish or produce market. Learn how the other chefs pick produce for the day, every day. What kind of fish is that? Where does it come from? How is it cut, stored, served and paired? Which vegetables are best in particular seasons? How much do you order at one time? How is it packaged? How do you set prices? How do you haggle? This is an educational experience you can create for yourself at almost no cost, to test the waters and see if this life really is for you. If just being there - cold, hungry and tired - still has you fired up, then maybe this life is for you. Maybe you should start planning.
Architects turn ideas into a functional reality. Thoughts are biologically and neurologically complex things. We should respect the science of that fact. Our ideas are how we give meaning to visceral experiences and emotions, the desires and obligations of our preconscious souls. Doug Patt says, "Architects make what accommodates who we are." Your life designed as a place will accommodate who you are.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Seventh Levelby Joe Hefferon Copyright © 2012 by Joe Hefferon. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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