A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder ↑

11.1.1.1 Building without blueprints

The school approved the design and brought in a small army of contractors to build it. The contractors duly admired, in a shocked and fretful way, the model of the God-awfully complex structure they were about to undertake, and then asked for the blueprints, to which Gehry’s team replied that there weren’t any.

To capture the building’s emotional content, Gehry maintains, everyone working on the building should keep creating throughout the construction process.

Freed from the constraints of a blueprint’s rigid specifications… the contractors and architects were able to collaboratively rethink the design and construction techniques in any way necessary to achieve the project’s goals. That led to an eruption of innovation.

Not only was the finished building a stunning hit, completed on time and within budget, but most of the contractors were so pleased with the invention into which they had been pushed that they ended up changing the way they do business.

Next: Adams, Ansel