The Inner Studio - Riverside Architectural Press

PART ONE | THE INNER WORLD OF THE PSYCHE
While many theorists say that the modern period is over, I
disagree. Given the enormous and hugely difficult labor involved in
becoming conscious, it’s more likely that modernism is still in its
earliest stages. The discovery of the unconscious was radical and
important because it shifted the focus of the creative act to the individual.
We finally have a map that shows the individual as
something beyond flesh and blood. We are just beginning to learn
to truly live as individuals in the center of things conscious and
unconscious. What will happen when we begin to design the built
world from a place that accepts responsibility for the existence of
the conscious and the unconscious worlds?
Calling on the Unconscious in Design
The Designer’s Journal
Journaling is a reflective method of recording your experience. It
encourages subjectivity and focuses on the development and
expression of the designer’s true voice through two different
approaches.
The first involves keeping a written log, a design journal that
reports on the way that you experience the process of design. This
commentary records not only the feelings and thoughts, intuitions
and understandings that arise during the design process, but
records when these experiences arise. This journal seeks to help
you identify your moods, likes, and dislikes, and find their correlation
with your difficulties and pleasures.
As an experiment, try writing at the same time every day and
simply describe what is happening inwardly as you make your way
through the cycles of design. What made you feel confident and
what made you lose your way? Where is your excitement and
where do you find yourself withdrawing or feeling a sense of dread?
Use this record to develop an awareness of and a respect for your
creative self.
The second form of the design journal is also subjective, but
brings together text and drawings. It may be thought of as almost
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