does he mean competitions that are purely for awards, and not with a goal of actually building something?

By him mentioning that, could it imply that he has done competitions and has reached a conclusion about them? Effectively bringing him to a point where he realized nothing came from them?

That is a big assumtion on my part. Although I don't have a lot of experience, I've done three competitions. I believe I have definitely benefited from them.

Though, have not read the book, thus I don't know his point of view . . .

An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements that exemplify Bruce Mau's beliefs, motivations and strategies. It also articulates how the BMD studio works.

1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.

3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

7. Study. A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.

8. Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

9. Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

10. Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.

11. Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.

12. Keep moving. The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.

13. Slow down. Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.

14. Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.

15. Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.

16. Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.

17. ——————————. Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.

18. Stay up late. Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.

19. Work the metaphor. Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.

20. Be careful to take risks. Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.

21. Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.

22. Make your own tools. Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.

23. Stand on someone’s shoulders. You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.

24. Avoid software. The problem with software is that everyone has it.

25. Don’t clean your desk. You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.

26. Don’t enter awards competitions. Just don’t. It’s not good for you.

27. Read only left-hand pages. Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our “noodle.”

28. Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.

29. Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.

30. Organization = Liberty. Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between “creatives” and “suits” is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'

31. Don’t borrow money. Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.

32. Listen carefully. Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.

33. Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.

34. Make mistakes faster. This isn’t my idea — I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.

35. Imitate. Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You’ll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.

36. Scat. When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else … but not words.

37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.

38. Explore the other edge. Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.

39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms. Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces — what Dr. Seuss calls “the waiting place.” Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference — the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.

40. Avoid fields. Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.

41. Laugh. People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I’ve become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.

42. Remember. Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.

43. Power to the people. Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can’t be free agents if we’re not free.

Beta,
Thanks for the Bruce Mau reference... My girlfriend and I just read this over some wine... Succinct, inspirational, beautiful.

Many thanks.

wine is good. instead of doing a competition... go wine tasting.

according to above he says avoid awards competitions, like gping out for best architect of the year award and such. I can buy that cuz it is an ego fest and lobby-driven work. it takes different skills than design and sort of assumes design as attack stance rather than collaboration.

least, that is the way I would read it.

Competitions are good for you. better than chicken soup, almost as good as wine. actually, as i work late most nights i tend to mix the wine with the competition-ing. best of all worlds.

i think the that's semantics. with all of the B.S. that happens with competitions, the favoritism, the backing out by competition sponsors, the "ideas" competitions that are there only for show and not for actually building the winning idea....why do them?

i mean, i thought about doing the High Line competition, then i realized it was an AOL/Time Warner venture, and decided against it. then i found out that the winning proposal was never intended to be built and that the High Line had an invited competition later, which D+S,R won. why did that happen, why did hundreds of people go through that process, money, time only to have D+S,R get the win?? i emailed the High Line organization and never received a response. it is perhaps possible that the material stated that the winner was not going to be built, but i did not have any material stating that and was not going to read the encyclopedic material you had to download to find it either.

so why enter, when these things get handed to the "real" architects?

Hi

I also participated in contests, the good thing about these are that you can prove something written in the text a decade after the contest are over most often you place a number on the displayes and with this number in your hand you can allway's find your project in the archives , an idea described in the papers is a good example of how yo can prove the concept to be yours, as even you get the drawings returned then in most contests the papers are kept, even not the property of the ones who open the contest.
----- a contest is a way to publish your works, a way to learn a lot and maby start the personal develobment ,that make you stronger.

as formandpurpose said, beautiful and inspirational. very beautiful and inspirational. the one point i disagree with is the one about not entering competitions. it conflicts with all the other points in substance and intent. it might be better worded, "enter competitions, but don't pay attention to whether or not you won. everyone wins when ideas are shared." or something along those lines.
there's no doubt that most competitions are full of BS, but they're still great opportunities to experiment and learn. the highline was a great competition because it presented such an interesting design problem. who cares if what gets built doesn't respond to the open competition entries - that's out of our control.

Keep in mind that Bruce Mau is at a point in his career where he can get comission and work from recommendations and past work.. face it.

HES HUGE!.

i would imagine his "manifesto" would be different if her were just starting out again..never trust a heavyweight when they tell you these things about growing a career, where they tell you not to do all the things that they did. because. the reality it.. they are where they are because of what they did.

exactly hotsies!

but maybe in the end, he IS making the distinction. Not just competitions, but awards competitions. I feel he could clarify more here. But it seems he is saying it is ok to do competitions, just not awards competitions . . .

wait, aren't competitions by their very nature "awards" competitions?

i think "awards" competitions are generally ones where its a kind of yearly review: (whichever design magazine) or organising body sponsoring them for work completed the previous year.
in general you pay quite a bit of money $200 upwards to submit completed projects, and then another $100 for the dinner presentation ticket to find out if you won.

bm obviously got stung by thinking he could clean up at some awards ceremony, paid all the fees then nada,

which explains why the advice might be good. dont waste your money, if the projects worth the recognition it will find you.

sic afh and the recent aia award

wiseof is right. mau is making a distinction between competitions and award competitions. really, do you need someone else telling you your shit is good? are you that shallow? are you happy with the work you produced? is your client happy with what you gave them? that's all that matters.

That point was specifically about Awards competitions. Bruce Mau Still enters design competitions such as the downsview park competition that he did a couple of years ago.

Then if thats the distinction, I think Mau makes a pretty good point.

Hi

What I allway's found interesting is, that in most competitions the ones who put it up, allready more or less know what they want.
Then to win a competition is just about "reading" within the lines , what "they" realy want.
Now when a mayer ask a fancy design on the behave of halve the population , and the design turn out to look like the biggest Bingo Hall in scandinavia , then maby they got what they realy wanted ----- well I can allmost make that a bet, that this would have given first price in one I participated and only got a 4' together with some other students, I am positive sure that if we instead had asked ourself "what is it they realy want and how do we make sure they will know this themself", if there had been projected the greatest Bingo hall in north EU. , then we would have won.

this thread is sort of weird, like w.w.b.m.d.
i am pretty sure that if you feel compelled to do a competition, you should do it - if it interests, excites, provokes you to do good work. you can like the incomplete manifesto and still not live by it; i am pretty sure bruce won't be the one handing down your last judgement so dont worry. but it is sort of funny to pick apart his point into awards competitions/other competitions and use that for justification, since he probably doesn't really care how you interpret his manifesto either way, and you probably shouldn't either.

hckybg, no one is picking it apart whether he is saying awards comps or other comps. he clearly states awards comps. it's not a matter of interpretation. it is his statement. not sure how you could read it otherwise. am i missing something? how can you understand it as design comps?

my point was that it doesn't matter what he said or meant. some might interpret awards comps as all comps, some as competition for a prize and not a project...but I am saying that it doesn't actually matter what he meant, since people should feel free to do what sends them, and he is being rhetorical. again, one can like the manifesto and still feel free to disagree with it, which gets back to betadinesutures's initial post.

aren't you kinda stating the obvious then? of course people can feel free to agree or disagree with his manifesto.

i think given mau's history of entering design comps and not awards comps [comps for awards for work already done], that mau means awards comps.

joe bloggs: i agree with you entirely that most comps to build the 'winning design' are more a political exercise than a design exercise. clients want/need (think they want/need) a big name designer in order to raise funds or market the project or just to feel cool... so the best design is rarely the winning design, or if it is, it's purely by coincidence. :) but that's a separate issue from whether or not you should enter competitions - any kind of competition - because if winning the competition is your goal, then you've already lost. there's a lot that's ethically wrong with many competitions, but that problem needs to be tackled at a larger scale than your personal decision/motivation for entering competitions.
so basically, many competitions are corrupt but you should enter them anyway.

JB - what do you mean by 'the recent AIA award?'
confused...

AFH has always made it a policy never to enter ourselves into 'awards' as we usually are trying to promote and advocate for those who have entered our initiatives and competitions.

I actually think that competitions with an 'open entry' policy produce the most interesting and innovative work. Closed competition do two things, create elitism in the profession and worst of all - 'expectations' of a design by the organizers. If the organizers invite only Gehry, Mayne and Hadid to compete they are esentially asking for a cookie cutter Gehry, Mayne or Hadid building...

I call BS on competition organizers knowing 'what they want', quite frankly the entries that try to read the criteria usually fall short. The role of architecture is to innovate and push the boundaries of a project, the criteria is a guideline that is meant to be pushed. many times a jury will re-evaluate the criteria and the role of the project - you can spend a day arguing over the aim of the competition.

Even worse is when a design firm resubmits the same design for multiple competitions and just changes the text. jury members and organizers know each other and we know firms (and students) who have done this multiple time... it's actually quite funny when an entry comes in and the entrant hasn't checked there board to see if all the text has been updated.

C

re: the high line

i believe the full title of the high line comp. was "designing the high line: an ideas competition." most people familiar with design competitions recognize "ideas" as meaning that the host has no intention of pursuing the "winning" design past the announcement of winners. ideas competitions (usually) purposefully lean toward selecting fanciful or extremely progressive proposals to generate interest or to exaggerate the potential of project or to get the public warmed up before moving ahead with actual plans.

friends of the high line clearly stated before the ideas competition began that this was merely a precursor to an actual competition in which a contract would be awarded.

An interesting critique of Mau's manifesto:

http://www.textism.com/maunifesto/

heterarchy , isn't corrupt a pretty strong term to use?

If you don't think that the organizer is judging the project anonymously or is using the competition to raise funds - don't enter it.

in regards to the highline, I was personally very disappointed that the open competition was an 'ideas competition' and billed as something greater. then to turn round and do a selected closed competition for the 'real thing' was kind of sad.

not all competitions are good, not all commissions are good and not all clients are good...

good words cameron. to your last point about not all comps, commisions, and clients being good >> this is why it is equally important for us to interview/question our potential clients and projects we take on. do they serve our goals and ambitions just as the client is interviewing us to see if we are serving their goals and ambitions.

agreed, CS. i suppose i left out another MAJOR reason for ideas competitions: to raise money for the closed competitions. 500+ entries @ $100 each buys you four or five Name architectural teams.

Not sure about all this. Inspiring words, for sure, but this discussion about not doing competitions is vague (or did I miss something?).

It's a little different in architecture, where so many resources must be used to get a competition done. But as far as graphics are done, I've entered competitions where there were awards and prize money, but no commissions. It's different than a simple 'ideas' competition, but I was happy to get my check(s) and have another award on my resume.

Winning awards is not only about egos, it's about recognition from your peers. That's a messy subject in and of itself, of course, but generally speaking, awards won look better then no awards.

There are no absolutes. What I got from this was be selective. Enter what will benefit you, your ideas, and your future. And as Thom Mayne once told our class "if you enter a competition, enter to win or don't enter at all."

"if you enter a competition, enter to win or don't enter at all."

booya

trace, isn't the need/desire to get recognition from your peers about ego?

winning an award from your peers makes one FEEL like he/she has accomplished *something*. but it's a false accomplishment. really, the accomplishment should be the success of the space/object created, the appeasement of the client, and the growth of the designer (amongst many other things, i'm sure). no one learns or grows from submitting a year and a half old project to the local AIA chapter awards program.

not saying, of course, that i wouldn't/haven't ever submitted for an award--just trying to guess the reasons behind what mau wrote. it's not completely about ego, though. it's also about exposure/marketing.

well put st.

thanks everyone for the feedback. i'd have to agree with Cameron's comments about the High Line, and that probably has a lot to do with my trepidation...

btw, although i have yet to enter one of AFH's competitions, i certainly do appreciate they manage to pull off, i hope to have an opportunity to be part of one in the future.

yes, there is obviously an ego factor involved, but it's also a lot to do with the marketing/exposure/employment. I would not, and have not, enter a competition that doesn't give some kind of beneficial reward, such as the Highline (that looked very interesting and I was tempted, but that there was never an intention of things going beyond the end and no other prizes, it just wasn't worth it - it's very disappointing that they had a closed competition after the fact).
Let's not forget, though, that some of the stars now got there by competitions that weren't built. Hadid's...damn, forget the name...restaurant/night club in Japan never was built, and as far as I know never had the intention of being built, but it got her the exposure and from there her career skyrocketed.

i agree but it goes without saying that Zaha's earliest competition wins were probably not invite only events...but then again that is perk of being Zaha now, you only risk the expense when the odds are better than 100 to 1??

i agree trace, but the comps you are talking about are different than submitting a project that you already designed for an AIA award.

BRUCE MAU IS NOT AN ARCHITECT! He is a graphic designer that occasionally talks to Rem. Can you name 1 "star-architect" that does not (or has not) entered competitions? No, because they are an essential part of OUR profession.

charbroil, i understand that. no need to shout. i am not talking of design comps. if you feel the need to be patted on the back by your peers by being given an award for a project you have already designed and/or built, go right ahead. no one is stopping you. for me, i don't need it. knowing that i am happy with the work that i did and that my client is happy is all the praise i need.

cameron:

re the aia. What I meant was that: unlike in the instance of the aia award to AFH which I understand to have been a nomination type process. WHICH IS GOOD/GREAT. and that the recognition found you.

Not shouting, just making a point, sorry.
IMO, architects have very limited opportunites for marketing and competitions/awards are probably the best way to get your name out there. The more comps you enter, the more awards you win, the better quality projects you get (and the more crap you can turn down). It has nothing to do (for me) with ego, it just makes sense. Either way, if someone where to give you an award, would you turn it down? If you are talking only about awards and not comps, there is very little effort that goes into submitting, so I just don't understand what the argument is against it.

ahh. yeah, being nominated is good but the 'pay $150 hopefully you'll get chosen' does not mean its the 'building of the year'

the pay and play awards always worry me.... If your a big firm like the big red G you can set aside a budget for 'award entry fees' therefore increasing your chance of at least placing...

charbroil, i understand the desire and need for marketing. part of what i do is design print pieces that market companies and organizations, but each person/firm needs to make the call of whether to enter award comps themselves. for me the difference is that a design comp is about producing ideas/designs/projects. the other is about getting an award for designs/projects already completed. for me, i find the latter offers nothing. it is not a guage of how good you or i actually are or how good the work actually is. it's what someone else thinks is good and that is so subjective and honestly, i don't care. the only thing i care about are what i think and that my clients are happy with the work. good work begets good work. maybe it's the small town boy in me. word of mouth is the only way you get work in a small town. i know we aren't operating in a small town, but for me, not entering award competitions has not hurt me or my business.

fair enough e. I occasionally design print/web projects, but I have never entered a comp in the field, or awards program for that matter - is it a different process from architecture? Maybe there is a bigger difference than I would assume?
Anyway, I agree that the awards process is subjective and the winner is rarely the "best" (per general consensus), but I do believe that the winner IS at least generally among the top entries and worthy of some recognition (and therefore is a gauge to some extent). Hopefully, it works out and those that deserve credit, eventually recieve it. Maybe I am being an optomist, but if it doesn't hurt your business to not enter, it certainly doesn't help either. And if it doesn't hurt to enter, then why not try it and see what happens?

i don't think there is much difference outside of the fact that there are probably more people entering in print/web than architecture. i am making an assumption based on the the idea that the turn time to complete a job is much smaller with print/web thus there is more of it out there.

with regards to help/hurt, you are right. it is a personal decision that i have made. i would say that entry fees do start to add up through out the year if you are a small biz.

see i guess i'm the sort of guy who enjoys dialogue, in fact i think i am a better designer when there is discussion about ideas. i don't know of any competition where there is any kind of feedback/dialogue among competitors, organizers or jurors. tell me where at the end of a competition anyone gets that kind of reciprocity? if competitions are about growing, where is the growth if no one can tell you where you were weakest and strongest in your design? of course this obviously assumes we go into these things looking for that kind of thing.

i guess part of me is disgusted by the idea that "we" compete at all. why do we rip apart designers that honestly try to contribute to the design environment? are we just programmed to be so competitive that "we all just can't get along?" i am not talking about the separating of the designers from non-designers or Per from not-Per, i am talking about those with different strategies, ideologies - modern, pomo, decon, post-post, etc.... - it kind of reminds me of crap certain music groups have to deal with, when they are an icon in pop culture and straddle certain genres and then are lambasted by the hard core members of that particular genre...what's the point, are they any less valid because of their acceptance?

do i expect too much from us and from competitions? isn't every chance to design a competition, a competition, a challenge to extend our ideas and continually test our own identities?

I do get something from entering competitions. At least the ones I choose (and it's been a long while), I do so by looking at what the potential benefits are (exposure, construction, monetary rewards, etc.) and what going throug the exercise will do for my design abilities. Getting good and being good is about practice, about critically looking at your work, and growing from each project. Competitions rarely restrict the design beyond simplistic constraints and the programs are usually very inspiring (not many competitions for office projects, although we did do well on an AIA sponsored one a while back - that I did learn from). It's a process and an exercise, with the potential for much more.

Does anyone receive critical feedback from doing work from a client? Not usually, at least not beyond the client and others in the firm (that inevitably will 'like' what the boss does). I've learned from the ones I've entered, sometimes from critically looking at the other projects, much like a school/studio assignment, and critiquing their work. It helps me grow as a designer, both in seeing what others missed as well as what they were successful at (and I had missed).

It is a personal choice. For me, it's 'fun' and beneficial, with the possibilities of growing as a firm, too. Almost a win/win. The entry fees are nothing next to the time involved, and that's the only thing that keeps me from entering as many as I find interesting.

As for web design/graphic design, there are few awards that I know of that are recognized internationally and fewer that receive any publication potential. The ones I've entered I did receive enough monetary rewards to make it beneficial, but they didn't help me grow as a designer (rarely are there 'here's the assignment' competitions).

There is one award for web design that is very consistent, imho, and that's www.favoritewebsiteawards.com . All Flash, and some of the best sites I've seen. At the very least, it's tough competition to win and the winning list is very strong - it's a quick source for inspiration for designing websites. But I'll listen to Thom...and not enter there anytime soon ;-)

you know what, after reading what i just wrote, i feel pretty dim...probably need to get some sleep, but to expect feedback from a competition, what is this, college....ignore the part about feedback, it really is naive on my part..........

After winning two open competitions, both billed as "resulting in the commission to build", only to have in both instances the clients bail out due to loss of nerve & bottom-line driven mentality, we still are drawn like moths to flame to the intensity generated & demanded by serious competitions/awards programs of all types -- AIA, Young Architects, P/A, ID, open, invited, one-stage, two-stage (a number of which've proven fruitfull, and a number that haven't) as long as the sponsors/jury seem serious, reputable. And regarding the quote above from Thom Mayne about only enterring to win, at Morphosis there certainly were efforts more intensive than others (particularly in the early days) undertaken in the office. The point being that a quickie is not entirely worthless...

The sad thing is that in the US (versus any number of other places) a building design competition, even if won, is rarely seen through by the clients (even if they've received a bundle of money from a sponsor like the NEA to facilitate the competition in the first place). Whereas outside the US, whole practices have been kicked off by major comissions that resulted from open competitions, all initiated and carried through by sponsors and clients with vision, faith & conviction regarding the process & the possibilities -- e.g: major first buildings (some huge, risky undertakings) by FOA, LAB, Snohetta, Jurgen Mayer, S333, etc, Can anyone name an example like that in the US in the last decade or so (other than various, and arguably less-risky, memorials)?

correction to above, second paragraph: The sad thing is that in the US (versus any number of other places) an OPEN building competition , even if won, is rarely seen through...

i guess part of me is disgusted by the idea that "we" compete at all. why do we rip apart designers that honestly try to contribute to the design environment? are we just programmed to be so competitive that "we all just can't get along?"

beta, i understand what you are getting at. for me, i like healthy competition. if i know i am competing against others, i am in it to win. my problem is often after the fact, and it often revolves around the idea of being a sore loser. i used to work at this industrial design firm. a lot of the designers would bad mouth successful work created by other firms as opposed to trying to find the value in that work. not to copy it, but try to understand what were the qualitites that made it successful so that the next time we approach a like project, we approach more informed.

a prof of mine once said to our studio, regarding the idea of criticism and support amongst ourselves >> in a sense, we are all colleagues, and if we don't look out for ourselves and support each other, who will?