How is it possible to rely on critique and theory in a creative design-process and at the same time - try to include one's gut-feeling? Or in other words, is it reasonable or contradictive to engage in design through a profound intellectual debate without eliminating spontaneous and erratic decision-making? I would like to argue that the way we process information, the way we build up knowledge, constantly needs to feed-back to an instinctive response. But what is the regulating element that balances between the gut and the brain? When do the hundred million nerve cells of our gut report to a ‘master’, or when are they actually capable of ‘doing their own thing’? Do we have to search for a priority, or rather how they interact and constantly inform each other? Is the gut the rough brain, that helps us to understand the ‘bigger picture’ by the way it senses our world from inside out, in opposite to the very ‘sensible’ brain that derives much more to information from the outside ? It is probably our sub-consciousness which establishes the closest links between the two. I see it as an absolute necessity that we as designers also educate ourselves in an eclectic manner, by drawing inspiration from mundane- as much as from philosophical sources. Isn't the ability of positioning ourselves within this heterogeneity the very basis that makes us rely on our guts by developing instincts that form our genuine creativity? If we take architecture as an example, there are actually few projects which demonstrate a stringent transition from theory to construction. Architecture styles in a way don’t built up on theory, but rather the other way round. In most cases it is the ingenuity of a few which is accountable for the emergence of styles, which later get ‘theorized’. In a way one could argue that architecture is too ‘dirty’ to follow theoretical models. It cannot live up to the abstraction provided by critique and theory, which in many ways make sense as philosophical arguments. Closed environments with a temporary character (exhibitions) allow the closest approximation to a theoretical model through a limited set of variables, but once the full scope of complexity in an architectural has to be addressed. The interplay between theory and practice in an inspirational sense is nevertheless a non-negligible factor. It is theory, that can help to derive one simple thought which can be seen as representative for a whole project. … to be continued

Fractal