Why?

Any course that teaches “creativity” will say that the foundation of creativity is the skeptical attitude. It is an unhappiness with how things are done, with the status quo, the norm, the conventional. It starts with the question “why?” That’s a pretty obvious thing, you would think. But more important still is the framing of the question.

Sometimes, some of my students tell me I answer a question with a question. For some reason, they think I’m being difficult. Here are some examples:

Student: “How deep should my beam be?”
Me: “What span do you intend the beam to cover?”

Student: “Should I air-con this space?”
Me: “What do you want to use the space for?”

It baffles me why students ask imprecise questions, and how they are unaware of this. In real life, if these questions were posted to an engineer or a client, they will have gotten the exact ‘answer’ I give them.

But what’s rich is the answer they sometimes give me when I ask them why they have designed something in a certain way. The ‘answer’ that annoys me the most is “why not?” It is the equivalent of “piss off.” It’s also the death of enquiry. A student who replies "why not?" is likely to get my 'permission' to proceed with whatever scheme they have. Come assessment day, they will be judged accordingly by a panel of more than 2 tutors. It could just be that the student's aesthetic value may have been more acceptable to others than mine.

But usually, I ask round-about questions because there is an inherent discomfort about the design. It is a means to prompt them to try alternatives without spelling out a solution. Instead of telling them the design sucks, I ask questions. It's a diplomatic way telling them I have problems with it. Sometimes, I get impatient and sketch out precisely what I think will be the better solution. But this is not ideal, because they have been deprived of a chance to think of the problem and improve on their own. They look for short cuts and worse, an ‘answer’. If it had been Maths or Science, I'd give them the answer. But this is about design, a discipline with multiple solutions, none of which are totally 'wrong'. In such a case, they forget that the main pleasure of their work is the chance to keep asking, “Why?”

Chup