[kree-ey-tiv]

The previous two posts by Studio109 prompt this post. The writings, especially the latest, reminded me of how I have been feeling for the past couple of weeks. This may or may not be exactly what was being discussed; however, it is in my mind a very related conversation.
I feel that a lot of people misuse, or perhaps, have a lack of understanding of what the word creative or creativity means. Perhaps I do to. I do not want this post to make it sound as if I think I have a divine understanding of the creative, I don’t. Having said that, I do feel that the word is abused. For instance, I am confronted fairly often with design problems that need solutions. One of these problems recently has elicited a solution from me that I am very proud of. It is a well thought out, clean, and clear solution for the design of an office with not enough space and too much program. After presenting my solution to some coworkers I was blown away at the responses. Things were said like…
“oh, this is nice…the client will like this because it is not super creative”
or
“it is not quite as creative as some of the other similar spaces we have done, but it is nice.”
This really frustrated me. I looked up the past projects referenced and found projects with large willful curving walls, and swooping ceiling planes. While these may be more whimsical design solutions they are by no means more creative and should not be construed as such (in my opinion). I think it is very easy to place a curve here or a canted wall there, at ones will. To take a problem and submerge your mind and soul into this problem and emerge with a clean, thought out, meaningful solution that uses materials in a logical, and perhaps inventive way so that one truly solves the problem is to be creative. To draw on personal experience and intuition and then translate that into a new space that meets a set of rules and desires set forth by the client is to be creative. To create a space that people understand and love to be in, all the while making it beautiful is not only creative, its art. Perhaps I am naïve, but in my opinion the creativity of a space is not solely contained in the form, but in the process, solution, and experience. Don’t get me wrong, a creative solution my in fact have odd angles and geometry but I don’t think that that solely can be used as a criterion for judging whether a space is creative or not. I know that this seems to be relating only to architecture but I am sure you can find parallels with this in any aspect of design/art. As I now look back and read this, I fear that this post has turned into a muddled mess of rambling and that my original point has been lost in frustration. If this is true, I apologize.