PERFECTION: BEYOND EXPERIENCE?

100 Visionary Creators Changing How We See Architecture

The Visionary 100 celebrates the world’s most innovative architectural thinkers: studios, individuals and collaborators whose ideas are not only powerful, but powerfully shared.

See: https://architizer.com/blog/inspiration/industry/the-visionary-100-2025/  ^

One has to ponder the impact of ‘perfection.’ Gone are the free-hand sketches, (see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/12/lloyd-rees-and-architects.html), the hand renderings, the cardboard and balsa models, the 31/2 inch x 21/2 inch white bordered photographic prints, and the 35mm colour slides carefully inserted upside down in reverse ready for the clickety-clack-clunk of the Kodak Carousel projection. Now we have super-real realities as renderings, exquisite fabrications as fine, precise models, and the slickest of 3D ‘real-life’ walk-throughs in seamless productions, just as things might be in every minute, realistic detail, but even better.

Looking back at earlier work from this hyper-real, high-tech field of wonder reveals images, models and remembered presentations that now look rough, ad hoc, and naively crude; primitive. While they were once 'state of the art' presentations to be admired, they now leave one feel inadequate, embarrassed by their ingenuousness; their naivety. The auto-correct nativity locates the concept as an appropriately droll, sentimental, cliché ‘Santa Claus’ clone – inept. One recalls the Graphos pen system, the Rapidograph pens, the pencils with H, F, and B ratings, and mechanical sharpeners; or the Stanley knife alternative, that was also used for model making and paper trimming; the scale rule; the T-square and set squares; the French curves – all drawing instruments that now appear curiously crude and laboriously tedious when one considers the constant cleaning involved, and relates this to the new keyboard control of everything today – the machines that draw and print, hands free, suggesting a new superior world of easy perfection that mocks the old; degrades it into a dusty ‘horse-and-buggy’ time perception, a difference that generates and encourages today’s exotic expectations that indulge the latest of everything and its promised ever-better future whatever. Who knows? – but it will be good: cheaper, faster, easier, smarter . . .

Is this the impact of the new? Are we creating more than we can ever experience? Are we setting ourselves up for constant disappointment, developing images that can only again be experienced as Photo-shopped illusions, leaving us in a hopeful, misguided fantasy, an ‘if only’ world of impossibilities, where ambitions can never be realised; with visions holding an improbable perfection that only stimulates disappointments and discontent, leaving everyone living within parallel worlds of what was dreamed of and hoped for being superimposed onto what we were able to achieve in the everyday context we have to work with. It is a situation constantly confirmed by the camera and its clever manipulation of images that fill our lives with marvellously glamorous visual incitements, hyper-realities that prompt, feed, and validate our dreams, our whimsical visions that always fail to be, leaving us returning to the images for some degree of satisfaction that might allow us to dwell in delusions that excite and inspire new ideas that will only continue to do likewise - dissatisfy. One only has to look at the fixation the camera has for the statement concept of Foster’s Sayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi as originally presented, its fascination for the framing of these different forms as composed images that seek to recreate the vision, and compare this with the actual approach to the building in its context – from afar, transitioning to nearby, and the entrance: see images below. 99 percent of the images of this project focus on the framing of these exhaust scoops in order to capture ‘the image’ of place, as if this is all that there might be. The struggle seems to be to try to get the ‘original’ foliage into the real image. It is the camera’s bias, its preference, that allows us to dwell on what might have been, the published image of this place, even when we are there. This remembered image is brought to bear on how we see and experience, in spite of the reality we are intimately engaged with in its presence.

What else has this circumstance done to us with this familiarisation of the desire for perfection enabled by the surreal world of technology, be it via AI or not?

This bespoke approach to discovery and invention that we call ‘creativity,’ drives a spike through ordinary contentment, making everything fabricated always appear less than desired, with a perfection in dreams being more achievable than in actual reality. That this approach to design might guide us in ways of seeing architecture is a serious concern that carries its own inherent dissatisfaction, disappointment, and failure, instead of the real world becoming an enrichment, an accommodating, and embellishing experience, faults and all,*  that engages every level of satisfaction within a contented and inspiring, healing wholeness. We are tearing ourselves apart with impossibilities, dragged by unachievable desires, false dreams and promises confirmed by technology that promotes idealism in its hands-free, uncreased, glossy, precisely superior, perfect accomplishments.

If we choose to remove ourselves from this dilemma, we can begin again by stepping to one side while trying to understand the Japanese people’s approach to imperfection,# and their love of craftsmanship that reveals the embodiment of concentrated skill, concern, and care in work that strives for a different emotional perfection instead of merely always flicking out smart, slick, ideal impossibilities as a matter of course, literally on demand. These ‘crafted’ things are just coarse, rough, and imprecise when compared to this hyper-super-reality that is now available as the everyday possibility with ever-better technology that gives super smooth, gleaming presentations on perfect, untouched surfaces – completely hands free; the pristine on pristine that redefines the hand touch as a simple, rough and ready, inaccurate inadequacy with a careless dismissal, while criticizing it mercilessly - the auto correct 'crucifying' adds depth to the situation as one is truly crucified by this impossible elegance produced remote from any human contact or spirit and its contagious intimacy. The tech approach demeans and demoralises, casting true skill aside as a crudely messy irrelevance; always something less, even when the spirit is richer and more wholesome. This is not an Arts & Crafts whinge about machines; it has to do with realities that produce super-unrealities as images that are unachievable: we are creating more and getting less. The perfection takes on the ‘boxed’ presentation of an item, and idea, an ideal, where even a fingerprint or a slight tear destroys the pristine image. Little wonder that things handmade are so disparaged.

Much the same can be said for the concepts too. As machines can be asked to morph and mangle, and produce on demand, literally, the wondrously startling images produced become commonplace, and make ordinary simplicity and raw elegance appear as boring, unimaginative failures; with freehand work being seen as hopeless attempts producing designs tediously, with methods and instruments that are seen to be retro, vintage, antique; antiquated.

We need to heed the condition we are placing ourselves into with technology, rather than becoming more and more agreeably astonished by its capabilities, its ‘tricks,’ if we are to again ever embody meaning in form and place; a feeling for being that enriches rather than entertains the eye with amazements presented by techniques that we are continually attempting to master. We need to consider what is happening to the individual before we dispirit the human enthusiasm for life and its integral wholeness, replacing this with perpetual entertaining differences for their own sake: because we can, ever faster and more efficiently, with the technology itself suggesting the unreal impossibilities that entrance, stupefy, and demand our attention.

This distracting enjoyment of perfection needs to be modified, managed; but how? A short stay at a coastal town motel on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia, highlighted issues that could help define the beginning of an approach to a more caring architecture. This sojourn raised shortcomings in the work where all attention appears to have been given to the concept, form, and process managed by tech that can give us perfection, even though unachievable, and fails to concentrate on or attend to the experience of the design itself: the interaction of the user with the architecture. The subject might sound ‘old hat’ being the essence of what Steen Eiler Rasmussen wrote about in the 1960s classic, Experiencing Architecture, MIT Press, 1964. This influential book, like that of Howard Robertson, The Design Principles of Architectural Composition, The Architectural Press, 1955, has become a worn relic of no interest to anyone other than historians - even librarians have very likely stamped these rejects as ‘Withdrawn’ - but both books hold matters of substance from which we can learn. Robertson wrote of issues of scale and proportion, and the like Rasmussen, concerned himself with the individual’s experience of place and form. It is this experience that came to mind and one’s awareness as we approached the motel.

It was one of the larger motels in town, located on the edge of the town centre, on the riverfront. We had looked at the building on Street View, so knew it was a six-storied structure with an ‘L-shaped’ plan located on the river’s edge. We knew this town, so approached the destination down the main street that runs parallel to the river. The motel was at the far end, to the right. We could see its height before we got to the corner, and approached it as we turned towards the water.

The first question was: where do we park? We knew this place had its own car park, so we followed the blue ‘P’ sign on the side of the building, looking for an open parking area. This path only led us to the neighbouring motel, so we turned back. Then we noticed a vehicle exiting through an automatic roller door: was the car park under the building with a secure entry? We went back to the river street and found a short-term park. Stepping from the vehicle, the next question was: Where is the entry? We kept walking towards the building hopefully while making an assessment and reassessment of the portion that we thought might be the entry. We were lucky. It was an eerie experience endured previously at Dundee’s V&A, and Glasgow’s Transport Museum: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/08/v-dundee-craggy-chic.html and https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2012/01/pedestrian-approach.html.

V&A Dundee: Where's the entry?

Transport Museum Glasgow: Where's the entry?

For the first-time visitor with all of the hassles of arrival, the variety of cantilevering planes popping out low and high left one unsure which one might mark the entry; the competition for attention was intense. Was the main entry to the motel the one that had the props puncturing the projecting roof with the cliche de Stijl intersection that is always less elegant than hoped for, given the challenges of the flashing, as Rogers must have discovered with his Millennium Dome. Why complicate waterproofing for a slick image or smart structure? The ‘sensible’ solution of a broken support - add the extension above the roof to create the image - that would make waterproofing more certain, is always seen as being ‘dishonest;’ as ‘cheating.’ Strangely this genuine, virtuous concept persists with its desire for artful penetration in spite of every messy resolution and waterproofing challenge. It can be seen to carry the same disregard for reality as the broader design attention appears to do for ordinary experience, with other matters seeming to take over and become the core significance, the centrepiece of all thought, intention, and action – like the control of perfection in resolution, presentation, and documentation that comes with the delight and amazement of the excellence of the final presentation, the schematics, the formal rendering, and the documentation: as if never been seen before: WOW!

As the entry lay in an array of glassy commercial outlets - a restaurant, a coffee shop, a bottle shop, and more, that all opened to welcome the potential customer along the main frontage, one was never quite certain of the choice of doors for entrance until they opened and revealed a typical hotel lobby space: a decorated carpeted expanse, smartly stylish, dim, with down lighting and a couple of decorative standard lamps lighting large, leafy plants – plastic? - a pair of chairs, a table, an information board, a clock, and a slick high marble-fronted counter with a person standing behind, always seeming busy enough to delay immediate attention, ignoring the guest with a significant pause before the ‘sincere’ "Welcome to . . . Your name? Do you have your drivers licence?"

The check-in process was faultless, and we were given instructions on parking which was the arrangement that we had believed we had discovered. Leaving the parked vehicle meant that we had yet again to seek out the entrance back into the hotel from the basement area. Strolling around the grim, grey, grimy shadows of the basement car park, one noticed a possibility that might be an entry, that, on closer inspection, was signed ‘Entrance’ with that ad hoc appearance of a 'fix the problem' signage. After battling with a heavy door - ‘Please close gently’ - and traversing a narrow passage, we found ourselves back in the lift lobby that was just around the corner from the reception desk.

Floor 3 - no worries; but Room 313? Which direction might one go? We avoided the arrows indicating lower numbers than ours, and wandered in the opposite direction looking for clues in the corridors, too high, too low, this way and that, until we found an enigmatic 313/314 on a door. Swipe and we were in; in another corridor that had a Laundry and two adjacent doors at ninety degrees, 313 and 314. This was our room; swipe again.

On thinking about this odd set out, one assumed that this arrangement allowed these two units to be managed as one booking, as a family space, but this private shared corridor held an eerie sense of unwanted intrusion, a no man's land zone with the potential for uncertain, uncomfortable meetings. Opening the door to 313 only aggravated this feeling. One found oneself standing directly outside the doorway to 314, in its private entry space, hoping that no one would come in or out, with the possibility of exposing the whole private interior space of this adjacent unit 314 to the 313 occupant, or vice versa. Why had no one thought of this awkward clash; the embarrassment; the tension?

We entered the standard motel room: bench, bed, art above the bed, TV on wall opposite bed, nowhere to put bags, toilet/bath space, lamps, one side chair and one lounge chair; a small side table; see – https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-quarantine-room-analysis.html.

Why is it always assumed that one will watch television from the bed? Why does the 'art' always feel the same decorative nothing? Why is there never any place to sit at a table and comfortably eat/write inside? Why is there usually only one seat of each type provided when it is a room for two?

The 'blinker' wall can be seen on the right.

Unusually, this unit had a bathroom with a WC, shower, basin and a spa, with the space opening up to the main room with bi-fold plantation shutters. One wondered if this was for perving from the bedroom, or whether it was for the bather to have river views, for the balcony opened up to the eastern vista of the broad stretch of water as it approached the ocean. The first option was ‘motel kinky,’ and reminded one of the shrewd placement of mirrors in these places where inhibitions seem to be forgotten, fulfilling the cliché perception of a motel room as a space for unrestrained enjoyment, frolicsome shenanigans like bed jumping, drinking, and sex - maybe all three together, in that order. The second option was interesting, and a pleasant change from the normal snug, blind, steamy bathroom enclosure.

While the river view was potentially expansive, a substantial concrete wall on the riverside, the right side of the balcony, extended out beyond the balustrade to give the sculptural break/step in the massing of the façade. It was an unfortunate arrangement that blocked off a part of the view as a horse’s blinker would, a matter that was a continual frustration to the simple enjoyment of the panorama that always left one wishing that things were otherwise in spite of the splendid vista. Had anyone thought of the guest?

The 'blinker' wall.

The room opened to a balcony furnished with two side chairs and a table: somewhere sensible to sit and eat/drink/relax.  When thinking about being on the balcony to enjoy the view and a drink – pre-dinner champagne and crisps was our little birthday celebration - the challenge was where to place oneself away from the prying eyes of the neighbouring balconies beside and above, while keeping away from the massive concrete blinker wall to maximise the generous outlook. On the other side of the balcony away from the blinker wall, the balcony opened up directly to the neighbouring units’ outdoor space, such that one could see the people on the nearby balconies should they choose to use them, and, if one poked one's head around the corner, one could look directly into the neighbouring units. One could already hear the neighbour on the phone. Why had no one considered and designed for this awkward, unwanted clash in proximity? Did no one realise the problem? Did anyone care? Fortunately we did not have to endure the fumes of a nearby smoker, a complaint that had already been registered by a previous guest.

The table was finally located midway along the balustrade to give some view and some privacy that still relied on the neighbours keeping away. Why? The sculptural qualities had zigzag balconies on level three, with separate balconies popping out above as checker-board projections, might have looked impressive on the elevation, but . . . Had anyone thought of the users experience; a person’s ordinary, everyday comfort in privacy?

Leaving the unit, we stepped out to again be directly in front of door 314, hoping no one will come out, and walked the shared corridor, hoping no one might come in. There is that interim period of edginess, uncertainty, the bracing for the unwanted, potentially embarrassing encounter: a friend with his lover? How might folk pass in this narrow space with luggage and dignity?

The lift was taken down to the lobby that was guessed to be Level 1 on the buttons, Phew!, and we exited via the reception. The counter had been placed for maximum surveillance, noting all coming and going with the rigour of a check point/crush rather than the subtle aside of an observation gallery. Everyone had to parade in front of the long length of this unit in order to come or go. The tension was broken with an awkward “Good afternoon,” just to accommodate the unwanted inspection and recognise the other's presence.

On checking out, we had to ask about car park exit without our pass. Why should we have had to worry?

The whole experience involved additional tasks and challenges that one might expect in a maze or an exercise course rather than being a place for repose, for the true accommodation of body and spirit. There were challenges and awkward moments that added frustration to ordinary, simple enjoyment, for the place was basically pleasantly comfortable.

One wondered: what might the motel have looked like if more attention had been given to the guests’ experience rather than to the concept and its CAD presentation and documentation, for the motel looked suave in the images. The most common image published was the view of the complex by the river, sometimes shown as an aerial photograph.

Unless we begin to put all of our primary efforts in design towards accommodating the users' everyday interactions, in no matter what project, with care and natural ease to enhance the seamless interaction, the raw experience, then we will be left designing abstractly for tech and its requirements, its perfection, rather than for ordinary, diagrammatic function, accommodating  those tiny things, those subtle feelings that become so essential to the fulfilment of ordinary routine operations and relationships.

These are the things that need our attention, and must begin guiding our interaction with technology that currently likes to take all of our attention. Maybe we always get over-excited with new things. It was generally considered that it would take time to get really good music from the electric guitar, instead of indulging in the different, exciting sounds that the instrument could produce.

This broad sketch overlooks the numerous details that aggravated. including the awkward handrail; the unfortunate step; the handrail projection out into the footpath; the . . . all of which seemed to have been the result of decisions that minimised any consideration for the guest or passer-by – neglecting the body’s touch; the feel; the transition through space: the rendezvous. It is this intimate attention to experience that has to lie as the basis for all decisions if we are to ever regain an architecture that can embrace and enrich; fulfil; an architecture that can stimulate an engagement with life and its subtlety, not one that seeks resolutions only in the drama of a picturesque style and its 'perfection,' all for personal promotion, to the detriment of the user.

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The Japanese approach to imperfection is beautifully encapsulated by wabi-sabi, a philosophy that finds beauty in the incomplete, transient, and imperfect, contrasting Western ideals of flawless symmetry. This is exemplified by kintsugi, the art of mending broken pottery with gold lacquer, highlighting cracks as unique histories rather than flaws, symbolizing resilience and beauty in brokenness. It's a mindful acceptance of natural cycles, aging, and flaws, fostering self-compassion and appreciating the authenticity of things, from weathered wood to unique brushstrokes. 

*

On faults, one recalls the report of Mies's visit to Taliesin with a student. The student, no doubt seeking Mies's approval, pointed out a rather messy detail in the building. Mies responded, telling the student that he should be thankful that Taliesin was there.

^

More visions:

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/01/style/new-buildings-architecture-2026

https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/9-humanoid-robots-at-ces-2026

https://supercarblondie.com/the-worlds-first-evtol-race-proves-that-we-are-truly-living-in-the-future-as-pilots-push-the-flying-cars-to-their-limits/

SAYED NATIONAL MUSEUM

It is difficult to discern which is the rendering and which is the in situ photograph. One might differentiate between the two by the greenery that seems to be very minimal in Google Earth aerial images.

Screenshots from Google Earth/Street View