Rule of Three (ish)

I feel like I’ve been coming back to this idea in some form every project I’ve been working on, so I’d care to share – considering that it works like magic: a concept as decision-making guidelines, rather than general direction. On a project years ago, we designed a five-story core-and-shell fitout moving fast (VERY fast), with limited resources, making decisions on the fly about almost everything. What saved us was agreeing early on three rules/layers that would govern the design:

One - spaces split into two buckets: colorful circulation and informal gathering versus monochromatic focused spaces. Two - geometric patterns as a main compositional driver across both layers. Three - engineering systems treated as part of these two layers, rather than hidden or fought. Four, bonus one - wayfinding as an expressive compositional technique.

The rules weren’t asking too much, they said nothing about the program or the bigger idea specifically, but were part of the concept, and they served as filters. Ideas and references went through them: does this fit, or does it belong somewhere else? The agreement was important: if a great idea sat outside the rules, we would either let the idea go or openly update the rule. Working around a rule to push something last minute was off the table. That’s the openness, and systems lacking that tend to break and become decorative.

Good form: use your voice to change the rules in the light, avoid changing direction in the shadow.

Looking back, that project is still one of the most consistent and disciplined things I’ve worked on.