REX
We design collaborations rather than dictate solutions.
The media sells simple, catchy ideas; it reduces teams to individuals and their collaborative work to genius sketches. The proliferation of this false notion of “starchitecture” diminishes the real teamwork that drives celebrated architecture. REX believes architects should guide collaboration rather than impose solutions. We replace the traditional notion of authorship: “I created this object,” with a new one: “We nurtured this process.”
We embrace responsibility in order to implement vision.
The implementation of good ideas demands as much, if not more, creativity than their conceptualization. Increasingly reluctant to assume liability, architects have retreated from the accountability (and productivity) of Master Builders to the safety (and impotence) of stylists. To execute vision and retain the insight that facilitates architectural invention, REX re-engages responsibility. Processes, including contractual relationships, project schedules, and procurement strategies, are the stuff with which we design.
We don’t rush to architectural conclusions.
The largest obstacle facing clients and architects is their failure to speak a common language. By taking adequate time to think with our clients before commencing the traditional design process, it is our proven experience that we can provide solutions of greater clarity and quality. With our clients, we identify the core questions they face, and establish shared positions from which we collectively evaluate the architectural proposals that follow.
We side with neither form nor function.
REX believes that the struggle between form and function is superficial and unproductive. We proffer the term “performance” instead: a hybrid that doesn’t discriminate between use, organization, and form. We free ourselves from the tired debate over whether architecture is an art or a tool. Art performs; tools perform.The measure of high performance is relative to each project and the positions established with our clients.
We reach for the unexpected by exposing root problems.
We don’t innovate for innovation’s sake. Nor do we accept predigested solutions. We return to root problems and doggedly explore them with a critical naïveté. Unprejudiced by convention, we expose solutions that transcend those we could have initially or individually imagined. Sometimes we discover uncharted territory; sometimes we rediscover forgotten territory that has renewed usefulness; sometimes we reaffirm conventions with assured conviction.
We view constraints as opportunities.
Engaged intelligently, limitations such as budgets, schedules, codes, politics, and site conditions are opportunities that can catalyze the most innovative solutions. Architectural concepts that capitalize on our clients’ constraints will surpass any vision that resists intractable realities. We produce specific designs that are highly effective, not universals diluted in application.
We advance new strategies for flexibility.
Despite an increased need to accommodate change, contemporary design still relies on an antiquated version of flexibility: one size fits all. The promise of a blank slate upon which any activity can occur has produced sterile, unresponsive architecture. REX advocates delimiting activities and addressing the possible evolutions of each on its own terms. With this strategy, one activity can evolve without sacrificing another, and collisions between activities unleash surprising potentials.
We love the banal.
REX dares to be dumb.
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