I majored in Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, abroad at the Ecole d’Architecture de Versailles in France, at MIT, and at Harvard as well. After working in Los Angeles for a few years, I started collaborating with art dealers and artists on wild, esoteric projects off the beaten path.

Flynn A&D works on architectural art, whether that is designing buildings for clients or translating artists' concepts into drawings understood by contractors. In any situation, it’s the effort to create something unique, spatially uplifting and visually stunning.

Architecture and art should be beautiful, not utilitarian. Life is too short for bland rectangular boxes. Established in 2006, Flynn A&D has worked on projects on five continents with artists including James Turrell and Peter Wegner.

It’s validation from the design community that the design effort was worthwhile. The award is encouragement to keep pushing forward with more creativity in future projects.

The project went on hold on 2016 with the drawings and engineering nearly finished but before any construction had commenced. In hopes of restarting the project as well as the desire to have quality images to showcase the design, Flynn A&D spent its own time and effort making the renderings submitted to the Muse Design Award.

Creativity on a shoestring budget.

The large amount of enclosed space, along with a few expensive unique items, stretched the budget thin enough to where the cost per square foot was average for an un-customized house.

Satisfying the creativity of both the architect and client while maintaining the budget took round after round of design.

In all honesty, awards are mainly food for the ego unless they help bring in the next project.

CNC fabrication will continue to get more economical, so embrace this freedom from orthogonality. Virtual reality will become commonplace, part of the designer’s workflow like pen and paper, easier to use and with better immersion and ergonomics. Ordinary renderings and visualizations will become nearly automated, so unless you want to become outdated, focus on design. Poetic creativity cannot be thought up by a programmed robot.

Get into the habit of dreaming and sketching your own wild designs and don’t stop. Even if you cannot build your ideas, even if you don’t have clients or projects at the moment, keep your creativity flowing.

You can learn all the software you want through Internet training and videos. But motivation can be more important than skill, so find people who can challenge and push you to keep developing your design thinking. It is difficult and lonely trying to be the genius in an ivory tower.

The LORD is the one who lifts us up, who gives each of us talents as He sees best. Trust God in all that you do. To Him belongs all praise and thanks.