In Jose Luis Mateo’s “How to Draw Up a Project,” he defines the beginnings of the process as a collection of abstract and loose forms that eventually begin to take on rigidity and vigor as the process continues. However, I believe the beginnings of a project should be the act of identifying problems, and once the problems have been identified, designate or set of goals that the project should meet. The rest of the process should be continuous and relentless form-finding, so that the “direction” of the project is more focused on meeting the goals rather than becoming so form-based, allowing the goals of the project to dictate the form.

Mateo stresses that useful ideas at the beginnings of a project are the ones with least specified form. If that is the case, why begin with an abstract or loose form for as the basis of a project? Mateo calls the loose formal beginnings of a project the “phantom.” However, I believe the beginnings of a project, although loose formally, should be quite detailed at the conceptual level. Ideas at the start should not be about the project’s appearance (form, shape, color, materiality, etc.), but instead about what the project is trying to achieve, and what architecture can achieve through this project. These goals and benchmarks should be the driver of the project’s form and development.

Mateo goes on to describe the next step of drawing up a project, the implementation of the structure. In both a conceptual sense and an architectural sense, a project’s structure is made of many layers which give it a level of complexity as well as depth. The introduction of layers brings about hierarchies. The architectural aspect of these hierarchies is found in the physical structure of the project, the “skin and bones.” At the conceptual level, hierarchies represent the different goals the project is striving to achieve, and the importance of those goals relative to each other. I believe successful projects are ones that achieve more goals than originally conceived, and solve non-architectural problems with architectural solutions.