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BIG's ‘Mindfulness City’ concept seeks to deliver new forms of prosperity to southern Bhutan

2023-12-20T20:00:00-05:00

Details of a new master plan from Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) for Bhutan’s future Gelephu Special Administration Region have been made public this week in the South Asian country.

‘Mindfulness City’ is a multifaceted economic hub designed by the firm’s Landscape and Urban Design Team to coincide with sustainability principles and the pioneering Gross National Happiness Index (GNH) concept that has been championed by King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and the Bhutanese government since 2008.

Rendering: Brick Visual

The 1,000-square-kilometer (386-square-mile) plan calls for the construction of a new international airport, hydroelectric dam, railway infrastructure, and university campus near the southern border with India. Ribbons of neighborhood-scale developments will run like tendrils influenced by the confluence of 35 different rivers and streams that pulse through the site, with densities increasing along the gradient from its northern rural highlands to mor...

Three tips for overcoming procrastination during the creative process

2022-05-19T11:53:00-04:00

As creative professionals, architects are prone to procrastination. In his acclaimed book The War of Art, author Steven Pressfield breaks down the many reasons why procrastination is a prevalent part in the creative process. “Procrastination is the most common manifestation of [creative resistance] because it’s the easiest to rationalize,” Pressfield wrote. “We don’t tell ourselves, 'I’m never going to write my symphony.' Instead we say, 'I’m going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.'”

For some experts on the topic, procrastination in the creative process is a necessary evil. One such expert is Alice Boyes, a former clinical psychologist and author of the book Stress-Free Productivity. On a recent episode of the Harvard Business Review IdeaCast, Boyes explains that “lots of forms of problem solving benefit from an incubation period where you take a pause between when you hear the problem and when you start working on it.”

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Building mental resilience in architecture during COVID-19

2020-03-20T13:27:00-04:00

With the rise in measures due to the impacts of COVID-19, many are battling the subsequent mentality driven pandemics of worry, fear, and anxiety. While we collectively strive to fulfill our work duties, we must couple them with parental, familial, economic, and a slew of other bombardments that have overcome our global community. How can we combat these mental intrusions during a time when poise and clarity are so needed?

Rasmus Hougaard, the founder and managing director of Potential Project, a firm that brings mindfulness to companies to unlock new ways of thinking and working, offers insights to how our minds respond to crises and how we can overcome the weight we often bring upon ourselves. In a recent essay, along with colleagues, Jacqueline Carter and Moses Mohan, Hougaard outlines a case for mindfulness that architects can pull from, as we tackle the complexities in our work and the complexities in our lives.

Our Tendency For Negativity and Distraction

As our minds wander, w...

How can mindfulness make you a better designer?

2019-10-01T17:00:00-04:00

As designers, we often are presented with an overwhelming amount of data to accompany a design problem. There are the client desires, the code constraints, zoning, the desires of the design team, materials, structural systems, and the list goes on. Sometimes, we can feel bombarded or crippled from receiving too much info. Where do I start? We might think to ourselves.

Nadia Surtees, a design researcher at IDEO makes a case for taking a mindfulness approach in our design thinking. "Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, one of the fathers of modern mindfulness, describes the practice as 'paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally,'" she writes. She goes on to list 5 ways she and her colleagues at IDEO go about using mindfulness to tackle tough projects:

"Adopt a beginner's mindset." According to Surtees, a beginner's mindset means "starting fresh, assuming nothing, and living the question." It can be tempting to assume we have the answer to something or to draw on our prev...