In his Masterclass, Frank Gehry touches on an important creative principle:

"I have always felt if you know what you are going to do in advance then you won't do it. Your creativity starts with whether you're curious or not."

It's an intriguing point. As I rewatched the trailer for the course, it reminded me of how Leonardo da Vinci would often abandon commissions. Many say he'd leave his creations unfinished out of boredom, but that's not what was really happening for him. Rather, he grew disinterested after he had solved whatever creative obstacle he was tackling. Walter Isaacson puts it perfectly in his biography on the polymath: "He [da Vinci] enjoyed the challenge of conception more than the chore of completion," Isaacson writes.

That's what Gehry is touching on: That, as architects, a large part of the creative process is situated in an iterative exploratory process. The work is constantly evolving along the way, details get refined, materials dialed in, and program realized. It's not a one-size-fits-all, but merely an approach for robust outcomes. The building process can be seen as a continuous cycle of creativity and refinement.

The cautionary reality of biased progress

In a collaborative setting, approaching a design problem with preconceived notions can have the potential to diminish the impact of one's contributions to the rest of the design team. Instead of diving deep with an open mind, seeking to discover an ideal solution, we create options and gather research that support our personal tastes and philosophies. We become victim to a confirmation bias that only favors suggestions and ideas that align with our own.  

But, if we approach our schematic obstacles with a spirit of curiosity and discovery, open to having our ideas challenged and tested, perhaps we might enable the collective thoughts of the group to produce a profoundly curious outcome.