Thursday Salute to Originals: Attention to Detail
Attention to detail is a learned skill that can be cultivated; things like using memory cards, puzzles, honing math skills, and image memorization. In the office it may mean getting organized, limiting distractions, avoiding rushing, or putting on the headphones to give that wall section detail 110% of your brain power. This skill is so critical to the design and building profession, for many of us it seems engrained since our first design course.
Even in our tightly controlled design world, you will come across people who will simply try to rush to get the job done and do not have the energy or time it takes to make it perfect. Why not take a little more time to try to really nail those details? If you take a step back and allow yourself to analyze every aspect of every project, you may find this positive change doesn’t drive you mad, but may lead to better outcomes.
Here is a fun task to test your attention to detail. As you scroll down you will see a few photos of flooring. Do any of these look particularly different to you?
You guessed it (or maybe not, depending on how distracted you were!). The top right picture is actually a glass floor with miniature people holding up the glass floor.
This flooring was designed by artist Do Ho Suh from South Korea. His theme as an artist is creating architecture that emotionally affects the viewer by relocating objects permanently in an active space. For example, a staircase suspended from a ceiling that was not an original intention:
Sometimes when we overlook details we begin to make mistakes that can hurt us. It is best to slow down and take the time to notice the details because the outcome can make or break the design and build of a project. We salute our artists and designers who produce a piece of art that not only is something to be viewed, but makes us think about improving our own work practices.
Image sources: MyModernMet, Sculpture Research, Gizmodo, Garages123, Epoxy, Garage Solutions