true design

I've always believed that true design isn't about reinventing the wheel, but about reconsidering - and improving - on a norm. Novelty has an actual value, in the interest of new things and the unique experiences that stretch our minds or make a place special, but new simply for the sake of different is usually not enough. New really should be "New & Improved!" - it should transform a useful object for the better.

One of our favorite cities in Scotland, Inverness, seems to have captured the essence of this fact. Their Victorian Park

has a broad range of unique footbridges along the paths connecting a series of River Islands to both banks.

But what I found truly compelling was the series of benches scattered throughout the islands. Each was a unique interpretation of a theme, so that they all felt like part of a series, and yet like no bench you'd seen before.

(I had made a commitment to use the Scotland trip to learn the manual settings on my digital SLR camera. Low-light settings are still difficult for me, so while the bridge photographs are mine, the benches are Christopher's)

 

 

These benches were not only a pleasure to sit on, but they were very gratifying - I caught myself stopping to reconsider the simple, obvious "piece of furniture for sitting in a public place," and even anticipating the next iteration. People were using the benches not only to sit, but to lie on, and as an armature for stretching in the midst of a long jog. They served not only as outdoor furniture, but municipal sculpture.

Sketching for Place

Over the summer, I added Urban Sketchers to my feed reader for some inspiration. I've since been working on sketching more frequently, as I believe that's a skill not to be underestimated. For me, one of the most thorough ways to experience a place is to try and document it. Not to mention the fact that as an Architect, communicating through drawing is one of our most effective tools.

So, doing is the only way for me to improve on a skill such as sketching, and I made a point of sketching while on our recent trip to Scotland:

anticipation in the airport

Aberdeen Beach

the original

sketching further down the beach

somehow, I managed to get down to the beach without any of the four notebooks I packed... so this is the back of a book I was reading ;) 

Pennan, possibly my favorite day

Scotland

Two weeks ago, my husband and I traveled to Scotland for the first time.

We flew into Aberdeen, the Granite City;

saw a ruin;

met up with friends to hike our first Munro, the second highest peak in all of Great Britain;

stayed in the Cairngorm National Park to hike another Munro;

visited Inverness, a Victorian City known as the 'capital of the highlands;'

drove the Great Glen, a series of Lochs, Glens and Canals that practically splits Scotland in two;

went to Chris' ancestral home,

and saw some absolutely incredible beaches along the eastern and northern coasts of the Highlands.

We ate the most amazing food and met some real characters. We now have stories we'll tell for the rest of our lives. And of course, this synopsis doesn't begin to do justice to the trip.

I’m very interested in understanding… or at least taking advantage of, whatever that thing is about travel that makes you come back a different person. And while the shine can wear off once you’re back in the routine of working hard and playing hard and feeling the pressure of all that, you’re truly never the same. I have a theory that if I traveled enough – or took those opportunities to read, journal, expose myself to the world and reflect upon it enough – I would become the person, architect, wife, friend, designer, I’d like to be.

This trip felt not only like a fantastically fun and relaxing endeavor, but like a step in the right direction.