Research 02: Make Something

Along the way lets put our creative juices to work. This activity comes from a classmate at Tulane and is similar to how I keep in touch with design trends, learn about new designers, and store up design ideas for later use.

• Pick up a design magazine at the bookstore or newsstand. If you are feeling adventurous pick out one that you've never read before. I like Metropolis and Dwell, but look for something that will let you discover something new.
• Comb through the pages and tear out any image that looks interesting to you. Create a pile of seed images to draw upon.
• Now collage these images together to create a room. It could be any room, even one that doesn't make too much sense.

For those of you who have never done anything like this... a collage can be as simple as you want it to be. Just tape or glue the images adjacent to each other in order to create a composition the can communicate a message.

Let the message develop itself. Don't take it too seriously.

After you develop the collage give yourself a quick review. What do your selected images say about what you might want in your home? When you examine why you placed one image adjacent to another, what does this tell you about where these kinds of adjacencies can occur in your home.

Save the collage in your Design Stockpile.

Research 01: Find architects you like

"Find architects you like" is a quest. In order to develop a collection of inspiring images we will have to find architects you like. Once you find photos of work that you like there's a good chance that you'll like other work by that architect.

This is where we will begin to fill up your design stockpile (sketchbooks, manila folders, or whatever) with photos of spaces you love. Try at least two of the following suggestions:

• Search the internet for an architect you know or have heard of.
• Search for your local AIA website, it should have a listing of members. (AIA Las Vegas)
• Search your library. You may find an architecture library at your university. (UNLV Architecture Studies Library)
• Try a web link aggregator like del.icio.us
• Visit Cutler Anderson's Website (my bias)

Once you find a website start poking around in the projects area to find image of things you like. Print them out or copy them to your hard drive. You may have just found your architect.

Research Activity Explainer

I'm playing with how to engage you readers. I will try different things until I feel I am having an impact. So I've come up with a Research activity. Maybe its a poor word choice. Please don't be intimidated.

When working on an Exercise activity you should always have whatever you need to complete them. Its just you and the Exercise. To complete the Research activity you will need to draw on resources outside of yourself. Most of the time the internet will provide these resources, but I may ask you to use some other resource in particular.

Like other activities the results of the Reseach activity should be saved your personal design stockpile.

If you've got a better name for this activity let me know. Here are some synonyms for Research.