I love the process of unpacking something. You design a ritual of unpacking to make the product feel special. Packaging can be theater, it can create a story.
Even a dwelling is a device that generates a distinct pattern of daily activities and their relationships. Some buildings are explicitly built for ritual, but the repetition of any activity, either mundane or religious, tends to ritualize them, and by facilitating this, an architectural structure can turn gradually – sometimes even unnoticeably – into an instrument of ritual.
The association of comfort with people and place are reinforced by the ritualized use of a place. Using a place at a set time and in a specific manner creates a constancy as dependable as the place itself. It establishes, in time and behavior, a definition of place as strong as any architectural spatial definition, such as an aedicula, might be. Ritualized use can do more than reinforce the affection for a place. Through ritual, a place becomes an essential element in the customs of a people.
Why? Because if you do, in time you will begin to see a difference.
The buses that move out of Helsinki stay on the same line but only for a while, maybe a kilometer or two. Then they begin to separate, each number heading off to its own unique destination. Bus 33 suddenly goes north, bus 19 southwest.
...It’s the separation that makes all the difference, and once you start to see that difference in your work from the work you so admire (that’s why you chose that platform after all), it’s time to look for your breakthrough.
Suddenly your work starts to get noticed. Now you are working more on your own, making more of the difference between your work and what influenced it.