What You Know About What You Don't Know

As in everything in life there's a lot you just don't know about something you do believe you know a bit about. The same holds true for what we do in SL. When I first entered the UWA Flagship Challenge I considered myself a proficient build at the upper level of the skill side of the curve. I believed my competencies where solid and I had a strong occupational fit with the outline of what the challenge was based on. Well if you have read any of my past blogs you will see that several times I have stressed the importance of research for any build you are doing. Well after having spoken about all the research I have done about Australia, it's history, it's culture and it's peoples I felt I had covered all the bases in what I would need to be successful in the Challenge. I spent a solid month of researching the materials, geography, history and culture of Western Australia before I made a single prim or texture and have done additional research on every build after that for the challenge.

So now I look back at it a half a year later and I realize that I had done a fair job but not a complete one by any stretch of the imagination. Being an American I will admit that sometimes we do have a centralist view of the world (it revolves around us) mentality. But, I will admit I did recognize this and did take the approach of I will look learn and discover what Western Australia is really about as well as I can as I sit here in Boston and do my research. Well the funny thing is here I am in a UWA Flagship Challenge that is based on designing an SL Architectural Designed concept to be used as a baseline for a Real Life Building to be constructed at the University sometime in the future. I can talk to you about architectural concepts, materials, designs and architects. Yet, as I look back in the hours and days of research I have done the only real knowledge I had of Australian architecture was of pictures and design concepts I had seen. I had not taken the time to look into the minds of the individuals who had created these masterpieces and what drove them and directed them to envision and create what they had seen in their minds eye.

So I will humbly I admit that the world of Australian Architects and their stories is one I am just finally starting to learn about so to the list of individuals I admire and learn from I like to add the names of, Cottier, Edmond, Corrigan, Hassell, Fitzpatrick, Grounds, Seidler, Murcutt. To name just a few of the many many there are to still discover.

So as the saying goes you don't know what you don't know, holds true, I for one am going to make a dent in that and learn a few new things.

Just do a google or yahoo search on the names above and dig and drill into the endless supply of information and links to many many other WA & Australian Architects that will amaze and expand your view of designs and concepts. For they have for me.

Good Building and Good Researching

Nyx