The Umbrellas, a temporary work of art realized in two countries at the same time, reflected the similarities and differences in the ways of life and the use of the land in two inland valleys in Japan and the USA.
After a struggle spanning the seventies, eighties and nineties, the wrapping of the Reichstag was completed in June 1995. For two weeks, the building was shrouded with silvery fabric, shaped by the blue ropes, highlighting the features and proportions of the imposing structure.
In 1983, eleven of the islands situated in Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, were surrounded with 6.5 million square feet (603,870 square meters) of floating pink woven polypropylene fabric covering the surface of the water and extending out from each island into the bay.
In my opinion, what makes a designer competent is precisely their ability to credibly justify their conclusions. If you can’t do this as a designer—no matter how successful your results are—then neither I nor anybody else can tell if you aren’t just picking things at random.
What I am proposing, then, is no less than to make a designer’s entire line of reasoning a matter of permanent record. On the surface is the familiar set of prescriptions, components, examples and tutorials, like you would expect out of any such artifact. Attached to every element, though, is a little button that says You click it, and it tells you. The proximate explanation will probably not be very satisfying, so you click on the next until you get to the end, at which point you are either satisfied with the explanation, or you aren’t.