Architecture is a highly competitive sport which consists of too many bold contestants to count, but only a select number of champions who remain on the podiums—some thousands of years old— and continue to inform how the game is played today. It would be mad not to acknowledge the incredible impact that the great buildings and architects of the past have had not only on the way we create but on the way we think about and respond to art and architecture as well. That said, it would be equally irresponsible for current and future designers to limit themselves to the strict principles that previous influential architects deemed acceptable. When creating work, every great designer has his or her own set of requirements that are considered essential in the result that he or she produces, a checklist to critique past projects and to guide future ones, a personal manifesto. The most famous of these manifestos, such as those of Le Corbusier and Adolf Loos, can go on to define the style and movement of entire architectural eras thereafter. When Le Corbusier defined the perfect house as a “machine for living,” and when Loos described ornament as a crime, modern architects began to create homes with no ornament, large horizontal windows, and open floor plans. The modern architectural era changed with the advancements in technology, placing more emphasis on the structural and functional properties rather than the aesthetics. But along with the de-ornamentation came a decrease in artistic expression and creativity.

As a designer, it is so easy to get wrapped up in the idea that your work must please everyone. Designers work their entire lives trying to create a universally loved piece, something so aesthetic and yet so functional that it transcends the debate of form over function. But more often than not, in designers’ attempts to please the crowds, much of what makes their work unique and great is lost to the public’s demands. Instead of crafting to satisfy his own visions or those of his client’s, the designer conforms his work to what is expected and safe. This seems to be because we, as humans, are taught to learn from the mistakes and the successes of those who have come before us. We are comforted by repetition, organization, and the knowledge that what we are trying to accomplish has been done successfully before. This human desire for order explains why we idolize the firm, set-in-his-own-ways architect—the kind who has determined, without a doubt, what is right and what is unacceptable in design. But why are these sorts of limitations still assumed to apply to the designers who don’t think of our work as a necessity but an open opportunity? Where is the fun in that? I believe that a building’s design should be a result of how the designer can interpret and better its surrounding social/economic/natural conditions. Design, while influenced by the world around, should not be limited to what has existed before. I design to play, to share stories and experiences and spaces, to explore my own self-expression, I design to solve problems occurring around me— I do not design to be restricted by one architect’s definition of perfection.