I was a big Dungeons and Dragons player when I was a teen. (I know, “NERD ALERT” is screaming out right now but maybe you already knew that about me.) This was before the game went video and electronics came into play. We had our reference books, special dice, and graph paper. The Dungeon Master would describe the surroundings to us, and we responded and lived in this imaginary world. We fought orcs, skeletons, dragons, and devils. We roamed through dungeons, forests, castles, and villages. There were no pictures or photos to use, we all had a mental picture and acted and made our way through that using the graph paper as our map. I enjoyed it quite a lot never knowing how this would prepare me for my current profession as a lighting designer.
One skill that I have taken for granted in the past was what I call, “thinking in 3D.” This is the ability to imagine the project as a mental image that you can interact with. There is no north, south, east, or west. You walk through the project and turn left or right. You look up and down. You are in the space and are experiencing it as if it were complete, and you were in it. I always thought that anyone in the design field, regardless of discipline or profession, had that capability. I was surprised to find out that it is more rare than I thought. We have worked with senior design directors who have to draw or look at the plans when we begin to ask questions about the project. I may say, "When I walk out to the balcony and look down, what am I seeing?” “If I look up, can I see into the cove?” This has surprisingly often led to a scrambling of looking at plans and perspectives that have been prepared. I’m not asking for exact dimensions, just a description to walk me through the space. Coming back to my Saturdays with D&D (that is how "we" shorten and refer to the game), I now see how my 3D thought process was perhaps formed and definitely practiced - exercised. We not only had to describe the spaces, but dive in them well enough to make “life changing” decisions and actions. (Was that chandelier too far to jump and swing from to escape the oncoming bandits? You get the idea...) In our day to day work now at Hugh Lighting Design, we practice 3D thought a lot - it's essential to our design process. Many of our design decisions including effects, fixture selection, and whether the light shoud even be there or not depends on what the imaginary occupant sees, feels, and experiences. I have talked myself both into and out of design elements after taking some time to close my eyes and walk around the space in my head. I know that many designers use Revit, SketchUp, and other programs to do a similar process. But what is lost is the sense of feeling the space, having empathy for the area, and also--discovery. Programs dictate how you will see the space as it is drawn and programmed, but they do not help with social interaction or personal interpretation. Don’t get me wrong, we do enjoy the benefits of these programs, but use them to guide us through the vision of the geometry of the space. As for the emotional aspect, I’ll close my eyes, and be a teen Dungeon Master again. How many hit points do I have left? -PETER
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