SIMPLICITY
There is always the risk of over complicating things, especially when the clients brief can sound quite complicated. I find there is a tendency for the list of requirements to get jumbled up in such a way that a basic list of requirements can seem like a series of obstacles to overcome, then there is always a risk of getting carried away with the complexity of it all and that can be reflected in the price and the design. It is not unusual to receive a design from an architect which is so complicated that you are put off the job from the beginning. This is totally understandable as it is so easy to get wrapped up in the list of requirements/series of obstacles that the only foreseeable way of progressing is a complicated way. I guess it if it sounds complicated it must be complicated, right!?
However, at JFW Ltd, when we receive these daunting lists or designs we like to take a particular approach, and that is: “What would this look like if it was easy?” Yes, I did steal that quote from Tim Ferriss, but there really is no better way of explaining it. From experience, 90% of the time the complicated can be made simple, all you have to do is remind yourself, it doesn’t have to be complicated, how could it be easy?
IT SUITE
We were approached by the Princethorpe Foundation to develop an idea and basic design for their new IT Suite. The brief was quite complex and the list of requirements was quite long, however, Danny took this brief and designed a simple solution involving low level walls with removable panels and cantilever desks. this simple design overcame all the tricky obstacles.
We also find that getting our ideas onto paper or a setting out rod go a long way to help simplifying things, by producing the above drawings (plus a few others I wont bore you with) we were able to offer a competitive quote which fell well within budget and because of the simplicity we could turn the job around quickly and install during the school summer holidays.
RECENT VISIT
Danny and I made a visit to the school this week to measure up some more work for the summer holidays, it was great to see the room still looking so good.
Have a great Jubilee weekend all!
Adam
