Notes from today's lecture. I am not sure whether to publish this, but maybe I edit it furthermore as the course goes on.
Birger Sevaldsson claims that creativity is not individual or personal. Creativity is something outside your head, and you have to be interactive and engage yourself with your surroundings to be creative. You need input from others to be creative. If you sit in a dark room you would still be able to come up with ideas, but for how long, and how good will they be? I agree with this, because I am most creative in groups and when my ideas are discussed with other, I can discuss their ideas, and we can come up with ideas together.
Some people are more creative on their own, i.e. Cezanne who left the world to live on a island, and still revolutinalized the way of painting.
Creativity is described as a ENIGMATIC, FLUID state of mind.
When you are creative, things are slightly out of control. Spontaneity is essential, no control to say "this won't work". You are therefore often creative when you are half-a-sleep, and a musiscian often makes better music when he is a little bit out of control. When you brainstorm it is also important to let go of the control so that you get out all the ideas!!
So, are architects creative?
"The majority of buildings made by architects is not creative". Well, I guess that is true, most of the buildings I know today have the same materials, a floor, walls and a roof. Maybe it is time to be more creative within architecture?
"To be creative, is guerilla tactics against your own typology / schimata".
"To be creative is to change the way you work".
"I am not creative, I am finding" Picasso
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
method: random word + flickr.com
Find a random word at http://watchout4snakes.com/creativitytools/RandomWord/RandomWordPlus.aspx.
f the original problem was "make a device that sustains a person", i.e. a chair. If this gets stuck, use the random word as a helper / cathalyst. "Make a device that sustains a person" + literature. Literature is the random word. This makes you think in other directions, you get other lines of assosciation and you come up with new contexts. This also provides other words / assosciations than brainstorming.
You can also enter the random word at www.flickr.com and see what pictures you get. Maybe these can help you on your way of assosciating.
f the original problem was "make a device that sustains a person", i.e. a chair. If this gets stuck, use the random word as a helper / cathalyst. "Make a device that sustains a person" + literature. Literature is the random word. This makes you think in other directions, you get other lines of assosciation and you come up with new contexts. This also provides other words / assosciations than brainstorming.
You can also enter the random word at www.flickr.com and see what pictures you get. Maybe these can help you on your way of assosciating.
tuesday 29.08.06
Today's lecture started with some tips about books that will help us find a more specific topic within creativity to explore:
Burce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto
http://www.brucemaudesign.com/manifesto.html
"Six Thinking Hats", Edward de Bono
A book about a method of creative thinking that tells you to wear a hat in a specific colour to play a part, i.e. the realistic, the optimist etc. This allows you to examine your idea from different wievs.
"Creativity and Information", J. D. Cougar
A book more about developing computer systems. But it also features a nice diagram which illustrates three of the phases in creativity:
People tend to not spend enough time on the first phase and rather skip straight to the second phase, the generation of ideas. But, the more well-defined the problem is, the easier is it to find a solution. And; good work on phase 1 and 2 makes phase 3 much easier.
Then some of the students talked about their directions in this course. One of the students are going to look closer at IDEO www.ideo.com, one of the most successfull product development companies. IDEO are known for their "Ten phrases of innovation" and their method cards.
One student are looking closer at a norwegian "creativity-company" called Stig og Stein www.stigogstein.no. They virtually have monopoly on teaching norwegian companies to be more creative, and have been very successfull the last years.
Companies have become more and more aware of the value of creativity the last years, especially business leaders as the Harvard Business Review stressed the importance of creativity. One of the companies known for their creative attitude is 3M. Employees at 3M have to spend 15 % of their time working on something creative that they like and are interrested in. This leads t0 new products and more ideas on how the company can improve itself. 3M doesn't only reward the successfull projects that come out of this, but also acknowledges the projects that fails. This makes it easier to dare to come up with new ideas, it is either way a win-win situation for the employee, and the company.
Burce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto
http://www.brucemaudesign.com/manifesto.html
"Six Thinking Hats", Edward de Bono
A book about a method of creative thinking that tells you to wear a hat in a specific colour to play a part, i.e. the realistic, the optimist etc. This allows you to examine your idea from different wievs.
"Creativity and Information", J. D. Cougar
A book more about developing computer systems. But it also features a nice diagram which illustrates three of the phases in creativity:
People tend to not spend enough time on the first phase and rather skip straight to the second phase, the generation of ideas. But, the more well-defined the problem is, the easier is it to find a solution. And; good work on phase 1 and 2 makes phase 3 much easier.
Then some of the students talked about their directions in this course. One of the students are going to look closer at IDEO www.ideo.com, one of the most successfull product development companies. IDEO are known for their "Ten phrases of innovation" and their method cards.
One student are looking closer at a norwegian "creativity-company" called Stig og Stein www.stigogstein.no. They virtually have monopoly on teaching norwegian companies to be more creative, and have been very successfull the last years.
Companies have become more and more aware of the value of creativity the last years, especially business leaders as the Harvard Business Review stressed the importance of creativity. One of the companies known for their creative attitude is 3M. Employees at 3M have to spend 15 % of their time working on something creative that they like and are interrested in. This leads t0 new products and more ideas on how the company can improve itself. 3M doesn't only reward the successfull projects that come out of this, but also acknowledges the projects that fails. This makes it easier to dare to come up with new ideas, it is either way a win-win situation for the employee, and the company.
Monday, August 28, 2006
the quest for creativity
I am starting this blog because I attend a course called "Exploring Creativity" at the Oslo School of Architecture. This is a small course, only 6 studypoints and we're having lectures every tuesday. A blog can be a nice place to gather my own thoughts about the course, and also share them if other people find them interesseting.
I'm very excited about this course, and it will be very interresting to get to learn more about creativity, probably the most important part of being a succesfull architect. Atleast if one doen't end up as a paper-pushing architect in the public sector...
Why are some people more creative than other, how can you control your creativity and how can you get the most out of it? It is no problem to come up with 20 ideas, but it can be a problem to come ut with 2 really good ideas. So hopefully, this course will help me find tools to control my creativity and get the most out of it, cause I do believe that at creative person is more likely to succeed and be a happy (sic!) person / architect ...
I'm very excited about this course, and it will be very interresting to get to learn more about creativity, probably the most important part of being a succesfull architect. Atleast if one doen't end up as a paper-pushing architect in the public sector...
Why are some people more creative than other, how can you control your creativity and how can you get the most out of it? It is no problem to come up with 20 ideas, but it can be a problem to come ut with 2 really good ideas. So hopefully, this course will help me find tools to control my creativity and get the most out of it, cause I do believe that at creative person is more likely to succeed and be a happy (sic!) person / architect ...
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