Conservatory Design- the key is collaboration
“In my years working with Tanglewood Conservatories, I have come to use the relationship that Alan and I have built together as a model for I want a professional collaborative relationship to be.” – James Davis AIA
These inspiring words were written by Jim Davis, an architect in NY who we’ve worked with on a number of projects over the last several years. The latest project, a beautiful little greenhouse can be seen in our Botanical & Palm Houses section, page 2.
Some of Tanglewood’s best designs have come not from the particular genius of any one person, but from the creative process that sometimes can occur when a group of talented people, all committed to a very high level of artistic expression, come together to solve a problem.
I am definitely NOT talking about “design by Committee”, which is the death of the creative process, but of a creative spark which can spontaneously ignite the imagination of the group and raise them to a level beyond which their personal ingrained tendencies would otherwise lead them.
I think the requirement for this is a willingness to give way on certain personal “convictions” which can seem so “right” at the moment, but are really only the products of our personal limitations—for no matter how talented we are—there is a limit to our ability to conceive really new ideas.
I was recently giving a presentation of a conservatory concept design to a group that included a prominent and very talented architect, a builder, a landscape architect, an interior designer and a client. The project was a significant conservatory to be attached to a new home and I had labored to produce several schemes that I thought reflected the unique architecture of the home as well as Tanglewood’s unique capabilities.
The architect had a different idea however and an animated discussion ensued. Scissors were brought to the table, and the drawings were cut up and pasted back together again and again until all of us sitting there sat back and said: That’s it!
The result of this truly remarkable collaboration is a conservatory design that was better than any of us could have produced by ourselves—and we all knew it!