Brainstorming-washing / Between Method and Mindset

Leading European and American architectural practices—OMA, MVRDV, BIG, SOM, and others—have cultivated highly recognizable strategies for developing architectural and urban concepts. Their methods often emerge from a combination of rigorous research, diagrammatic thinking, and narrative construction. Concept generation begins with data: demographic shifts, economic flows, mobility patterns, or social behaviors are abstracted into analytical diagrams that serve as both justification and form-generator. In offices like OMA or MVRDV, these diagrams are then manipulated—stacked, folded, exploded—until they yield spatial and programmatic systems that appear simultaneously rational and provocative.
This process, while intellectually disciplined, can also become a kind of methodology-fetish. Within such environments, the iterative use of research-driven diagrams, PowerPoint narratives, and collage-like massing operations becomes second nature. Young architects working in these offices quickly internalize this logic: every project must start from a “story” about society; every formal move must be diagrammatically legible; every irregularity must be justified as “programmatic necessity.” The strength of these methods—clarity, communicability, and strategic depth—can paradoxically become their limitation. Former employees sometimes find themselves “brainwashed,” instinctively reaching for the same representational tropes, the same sequences of conceptual steps, even when the problem at hand might demand a different approach.
To break free from this methodological conditioning, one must first acknowledge its pedagogical value. The analytical discipline learned in such offices provides a solid foundation for independent thinking. The goal is not to reject those strategies wholesale, but to deconstruct and repurpose them. Instead of using data to legitimize predetermined forms, one might use it to question the premises of the brief. Instead of relying on diagrams as aesthetic devices, they can become critical tools to expose contradictions or generate unexpected narratives.
Developing one’s own conceptual strategies requires re-situating the design process around curiosity rather than formula. Begin with close observation—of context, material behavior, cultural practices—before abstraction. Allow intuitive and experiential readings to coexist with analytical ones. Avoid the impulse to make every project fit into a pre-packaged “concept story.” Experiment with formats of representation that are unfamiliar: filmic sequencing, physical models, soundscapes, or participatory mapping. Over time, a personal methodology emerges—one that retains the analytical sharpness of leading practices but channels it through a distinct sensibility.

Ultimately, concept development in architecture should not be about demonstrating intellectual pedigree, but about producing meaningful frameworks for spatial experience. The legacy of the “big offices” is invaluable—but the true test for a designer is learning how to think through those methods, not within them.

Bio-digital Jazz

The early phase of architectural concept development can be understood through three successive stages: a breath of divinity, an act of intuition, and the material plane. A breath of divinity represents the initial emergence of an idea—a pre-rational moment in which a direction or problem is recognized before it is consciously defined. It signals the identification of potential rather than a solution. An act of intuition follows, translating that latent idea into a spatial or formal gesture. This step is less about reasoning than about testing: drawing, sketching, or modeling as a way of giving the idea its first tangible expression. Finally, the material plane situates the gesture within the constraints and possibilities of construction, material behavior, and context.

In recent decades, however, this phase has been increasingly mediated by digital tools. The negotiation between idea and materiality now passes through the freedoms and limitations of computational environments—3D modeling platforms such as Rhinoceros or parametric software that both enable and condition the design process.

The architect operates in a hybrid space where the digital model becomes an extension of intuition and a precursor to physical reality.

Within this setting, design emerges as a kind of human–machine improvisation, a “bio-digital jazz” in which the rhythm of thought is intertwined with algorithmic feedback. The architectural concept thus evolves not only from abstraction to embodiment, but also through the continuous exchange between biological perception and computational logic.

Constantine Cosmas