I have a question running thru my head for some months. I do not have the faintest clue about the answer.
The Question: what is the "Zen" in our (your) design?
The Question: what is the "Zen" in our (your) design?
Some responses to the poser: (The full names are a way to prevent mistaken identities)
ARIJIT SEN: Frankly, I don’t much clue about what Zen means. So, I looked it up. I found (on wikipedia) : "through Zen there developed a way which concentrated on direct experience rather than on rational creeds or revealed scriptures.".
According to this definition, the Zen in my design is my ability to carry a beginning through a process and be able to translate it into a coherent product.
I hope this made some sense!!
ARUN MATHAI: Perhaps the essence of 'Zen' lies in the fact that it seems unseemingly impossible. Assuming that to be true and going by that definition, I would safely bet that none of us has experienced the 'Zen' in our design or so to say the enlightening part of design that is completely fruitful. I believe that everyone will agree with me when I say that the closest anyone ever came to experiencing that was when they made their first proper 'perfect' design. perfect because it seemed neat by design standards and it catered to the requirements of design. when the final line to that design was drawn, perhaps that’s when we were truly satiated. Zen in our design is otherwise a chase where we keep looking for something that we cannot find....maybe.
We all chase Unicorns in hopes of riding it one day....... think about it........
RASHMI KURUP: Zen literally means meditation. what is the meditation in my design? meditation itself is a state of awareness.you can't look for such answers from others. you have to find your answer yourself.and the answer is 42. sorry couldn't help that.but really there is no answer.your state of awareness, your Zen is what comes through in your design.the depth of your awareness comes through in every line your draw and transform into realization.there is also a fine line between knowing how to do a thing and doing the thing. thoda lateral, yet very pertinent. coz Zen is not theoretical /analytical. it is practice. pure practice. the moment you are aware of being aware. that is your Zen.could you tell me how the question arose?’ coz on the face of it seems like a bogus question. but I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt.
TAPAN MAHARISHI
well, plz enlighten.... what’s Zen?? wikipedia wasn’t helpful
ARJUN SHARMA
what a question!... I guess I could say that I need a lot of time to consider it -but then ... I doubt if that’s true. to be honest i'm not really sure if vie attempted to address Zen in my designs so far (although I really really want to). I wonder where I forgot all that. hmmm..hmmm
-- anyways from wat i've read so far the more we consciously discuss it and "pin point" it - the less likely we are to get it..... why are u asking this ???? :)??
WHY AM I ASKING THIS...
Because of the manner in which the term "Zen" has been used in three readings.
1- A magazine article that describes a particular designed space that is chaotic (to me when i saw it) as "Zen like sparseness"
2- Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance- Robert Prizig
3- Zen Flesh Zen Bones (another book)
I have been ruminating on what I have done/ achieved in the last 1 year in terms of "design", having been very blessed with some satisfying moments in some projects till recently.
Moments that, in retrospect, have continued to be the underpinning of the design, even in those works modified beyond recognition by the client’s gardener; the oxymoron "blinding clarity" which made me do what I did then.
I am missing this trajectory of late. The sites that I am working on at present have not "pin-pointed" much. Maybe, the questions asked of it are wrong/early/late/jumbled. Whatever the reason, the designs are pretty but the moron is devoid of oxygen.
ARIJIT SEN: Frankly, I don’t much clue about what Zen means. So, I looked it up. I found (on wikipedia) : "through Zen there developed a way which concentrated on direct experience rather than on rational creeds or revealed scriptures.".
According to this definition, the Zen in my design is my ability to carry a beginning through a process and be able to translate it into a coherent product.
I hope this made some sense!!
ARUN MATHAI: Perhaps the essence of 'Zen' lies in the fact that it seems unseemingly impossible. Assuming that to be true and going by that definition, I would safely bet that none of us has experienced the 'Zen' in our design or so to say the enlightening part of design that is completely fruitful. I believe that everyone will agree with me when I say that the closest anyone ever came to experiencing that was when they made their first proper 'perfect' design. perfect because it seemed neat by design standards and it catered to the requirements of design. when the final line to that design was drawn, perhaps that’s when we were truly satiated. Zen in our design is otherwise a chase where we keep looking for something that we cannot find....maybe.
We all chase Unicorns in hopes of riding it one day....... think about it........
RASHMI KURUP: Zen literally means meditation. what is the meditation in my design? meditation itself is a state of awareness.you can't look for such answers from others. you have to find your answer yourself.and the answer is 42. sorry couldn't help that.but really there is no answer.your state of awareness, your Zen is what comes through in your design.the depth of your awareness comes through in every line your draw and transform into realization.there is also a fine line between knowing how to do a thing and doing the thing. thoda lateral, yet very pertinent. coz Zen is not theoretical /analytical. it is practice. pure practice. the moment you are aware of being aware. that is your Zen.could you tell me how the question arose?’ coz on the face of it seems like a bogus question. but I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt.
TAPAN MAHARISHI
well, plz enlighten.... what’s Zen?? wikipedia wasn’t helpful
ARJUN SHARMA
what a question!... I guess I could say that I need a lot of time to consider it -but then ... I doubt if that’s true. to be honest i'm not really sure if vie attempted to address Zen in my designs so far (although I really really want to). I wonder where I forgot all that. hmmm..hmmm
-- anyways from wat i've read so far the more we consciously discuss it and "pin point" it - the less likely we are to get it..... why are u asking this ???? :)??
WHY AM I ASKING THIS...
Because of the manner in which the term "Zen" has been used in three readings.
1- A magazine article that describes a particular designed space that is chaotic (to me when i saw it) as "Zen like sparseness"
2- Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance- Robert Prizig
3- Zen Flesh Zen Bones (another book)
I have been ruminating on what I have done/ achieved in the last 1 year in terms of "design", having been very blessed with some satisfying moments in some projects till recently.
Moments that, in retrospect, have continued to be the underpinning of the design, even in those works modified beyond recognition by the client’s gardener; the oxymoron "blinding clarity" which made me do what I did then.
I am missing this trajectory of late. The sites that I am working on at present have not "pin-pointed" much. Maybe, the questions asked of it are wrong/early/late/jumbled. Whatever the reason, the designs are pretty but the moron is devoid of oxygen.
Dude!!......forget Zen n sleep will u!!.......its 12 am already.... Go sleep.....thats the Zen in design.....sleep!!!
ReplyDeleteAfter thought, and reading the responses, I would like to state that, I have experienced zen while drawing my first sketch of a project. But more often than not, when I end up "resolving" it, I descend down to the banalities !To be able to transcend to a higher state -meditation, through the purest involvement of the self wold be the zen.
ReplyDelete@ arijit..
ReplyDeleteif u feel that the zen in your thought process is when u make that first sketch, and the resolving that built form into something tangible, that can be felt, walked through, experienced by others and not just within youe mind all is banal,questions come to my mind ?
a. how will what u have concieved jump out of that piece of paper..
b. cant the 'banal' process of resolving that sketch into a built form, enhance/improve and add to your first intial thought..
what u had mentioned earlier,
"Zen in my design is my ability to carry a beginning through a process and be able to translate it into a coherent product." would define it for me atleast ..
THE SKILL IS TO CARRY THROUGH THE
RESOLUTION THE INTIAL SKETCH/DIAGRAM/IDEA TO THE END BUILT FORM WHICH WOULD BE A MERE TRANSLATION....
Hi, Gannuman
ReplyDeleteto be honest, Zen is one of those terms which is being used in magazines with a complete disregard to its meaning, with almost every farm having its own private "Zen Garden", which more often is so cluttered that it cant even be called a designed space.
after going thru this broad spectrum of responses and some comments, i feel that all/ most of us are refering to the 'high' achieved when we have struck the right cord while designing, and which surges with each right stroke, tht moment or tht state is where we all want to stay.
we all have experienced it, we may call with different names high, satisfying moment, zen, etc.
coming back to our common quest, zen in our designed spaces, would be when we are able to make a space which stimulates this experience to most of the users, there are a lot of variables tht need to be negotiated in this process, but that's the fun in resolving our designs which would otherwise be such a mechanical experience.
just to explain my point, i feel such a high when i see the work of kahn, specifically the court of Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/f/fd/20070408201454!Salk_Institute.jpg)
-chhitiz
hmmm.... ever since u mentioned ZAMM as one of the books u reffered for zen, i went back to it to find answers of my own.....
ReplyDeletedidnt find any except the disclaimer on the front about not being very factual about motorcycles or zen kept popping in my mind a million times......
and then i found something quite by accident ... tot id add it here, but im afraid it might not help much
chapter 18 '....."Man,will you please kindly dig it!!...and hold up all your seven dollar questions? if you got to ask what it is all the time , you'll never get time to know.."......'
(hmm incidently ...i tot id add a bit of my personal experience here.... id started reading on zen about the same time id started this book , back in 2004 i think....mostly internet.
but after about a month of reading on and off... i kinda gave up on it.... it wasnt getting anywhere...
i got this wierd feeling that i was reading the same thing over and over again... the crux of zen , i think is simple, which is why we all might find it so difficult.
ZAMM helps in a way.. but i think its most important lesson is that we cant really use systems to objectify it....
if someone feels a "zen like quality to a space" then either you feel it too, or you have an idea of your own. but im not sure if anyone can claim that something (that is being talked about ) is NOT zen
If you might find Zen more interesting to pick one item at random and reflect on how it might relate to the systems you're working on your design.This is just the thing to reflect.
ReplyDeleteHi Ganesh,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very late reply to your question.
Conceiving a space largely depends on your mood at that moment. However sometimes spaces create a platform to set your mood. This is what i have encountered lately. There are certain spaces which contiguously talk to you or are always making a statement....even though they appear visually appealing at the first instance but after a while they make me uncomfortable. This is because it does not allow us to be what we are, they don't always accommodate us, they are some or the other way directing us. Zen i think is a space that allows us to Be, sometimes to have a conversation with ourselves, to think, to be aware and i think that is what meditation might be.