Well ladies and gentlemen, it certainly seems like we have an ole “cart before the horse” scenario. With any project, there are a large number of variables that need to be considered. And this is no less true for our small design proposal. The trick is learning to manage the proverbial cart and horse. Or chicken and egg. Or whatever sayings you have tucked away for such situations. Regardless of your idiomatic preferences, the bottom line is this: certain things have to occur for other things to move forward.
Fortunately, we’ve got this. Things are well under control and advancing in an appropriate fashion. While it may seem to an outside observer that we are putting the cart before the horse, we have found a way to march them side-by-side. Now, you may be sitting there with your lukewarm cup of morning coffee in your hands asking yourself, “What in the world is this person talking about? How do I know if they are putting the cart before the horse, this post has no context!” Allow me to back up for a minute…
We are currently advancing with three separate teams in place. One charged with resolving construction details, another with building proportion/scale/function, and one with budget/materials research and estimating. In reality, we are all involved with each of these, but we definitely have our focus groups in these specific concentrations. This is where that cart and horse we were talking about earlier comes into play. You see, in order for one group to move forward, another has to do a certain amount of work. It’s not unlike a group sit that you may have done as a kid. You know, when everybody gets in a circle and sits at one time only to be held up by sitting on the lap of the person behind them? Well that’s what studio is like now.
In order for budgeting to move forward with material estimation, construction methods needs to make certain decisions about how it will be constructed. And to know what construction methods to pursue, the scale/function team need to make decisions on their side of the table, and for the scale/function team to make decisions, the budgeting team needs to determine what materials are likely and should be pursued as possibilities. And then the budgeting/materials group gets feed back from construction methods saying what materials to price and ignore. Whew… I’m out of breath just typing and thinking about it.
You can see how it becomes almost an issue of circular logic. Round and round we go. The difference here is that with each lap we take we are getting closer to a solution. So maybe not so much circular logic as spiral logic. (I know, nice turn of phrase there.) Each lap brings us closer to the center: the ultimate design iteration and eventual construction concept. Anyway, thanks for sticking around to hear about how things are going. As you may have picked up, we are keeping our plates full. Stay tuned for more updates!