I was extremely keen to start using a physical sketchbook as my ideas were becoming more developmental. I usually create most of my work digitally on my iPad, as I find it easy to collage and create really effective drawing quickly with a medium I am used to. However I feel there is something about sketchbook work that offers a physical journaled process – one step after another – that a digital tablet cant offer. I felt I was at the stage where I needed to create multiple, very rough concepts and idea – I wanted to be able to just jot things down but be able to look back on them to be able to develop from them in a succinct way.
Over the weekend, I had a phone call with my previous employer and now a friend, Jo White, who I had worked with over the previous summer. I spoke to jo about my project, and how I was getting somewhere but couldn’t seem to make a break through to create an exciting, relevant design solution. We discussed the concept for a while, and she commented that this seemed a very practical and potentially dry subject. She said that she had really experienced a similar thing when she was designing in her Masters: she had a project of redesigning the Birmingham Labour museum, which she said could have also been seen as this very dry and very dull subject. However, she had managed to eventually design an extremely inspiring central staircase structure, embellished with symbolisms of freedom and light. She said once she had created this structure, everything else suddenly seemed to fall into place as all the other aspects could be based around this central focal point. She abruptly had to ring off, and suddenly I was struck with the idea of having of course, a bridge – to join the two sides of the building! There essentially already exists a bridge to some degree as the two buildings meet to form the passageway. When Jo rang back she suggested to me; ‘what about an inspiring bridge design?’ and I knew this was the beginning of my design realisations. I have learned a really valuable lesson from Jo here. She has had so many more years of designing than me, so I really value her advice, and I will always remember how she enabled me to transform my project. I remember her saying you have to think architecturally and structurally about a problem, which I will now always strive to do.