Designing from inside out

I have that morning sluggishness which means only one thing: I've spent yet another night staying up way past my bedtime watching the 2008 Olympics. This year, the olympics has been an athletic treat while also providing amazing visual feasts.

I watched the opening ceremonies and was moved by the intricacy of the production. As I researched the creative minds that envisioned the production, I learned an interesting fact: the Olympic stadium was designed AFTER the opening ceremonies had been created. The stadium was created FOR the opening ceremonies, not the other way around.

I believe this approach gives voice to a design philosophy that I embrace: design around what is going on in the space, not around gadgets, furniture, or technology. While often flying in the face of vapid consumerism, I find that keeping what's important -- often people and their needs -- is at the heart of what good design, good art is all about.

No doubt, designing a multi media, diverse production such as the opening ceremonies of the olympics is a design project beyond any scale that I may ever do, I have to applaud the simplicity of approach that is universal: knowing who is using the space determines the course of the design.