In a recent issue of the Economist, I read an article that captured some very powerful ideas, ideas that I hadn’t realized I supported and incorporated into my work. The article is called “The uses of difficulty” by Ian Leslie, and it postulates that small obstacles may boost the creativity of the brain. He cites several studies and anedotes, and my favorite one is a neuroscience study that found that handwriting activates more areas of the brain than typing. Ian suggests that the act of trying to make your hand do what you want it to creates a tension that produces a denser expression, as opposed to using a keyboard where letters can flow out easily.

This leads me to speculate that one reason that architects cling to hand drafting – and the reason I still do it – is because it’s the most effective way for me to get my initial thoughts out of my brain. Though once I’ve worked those thoughts out, I switch over to the computer, because I can do so much more through those tools. But even using the computer doesn’t necessarily mean that the process is easier.

Ian recounts the situation of the Beatles, who weren’t able to come to America to record, where the equipment was more advanced, because of their contract with EMI. So they had to find ways to make the older equipment at Abbey Road work in the ways that they wanted the songs to sound. And it required considerable ingenuity and effort to make that happen. Also, he notes that Jack White purposely uses cheap instruments that don’t hold a tune because he finds that when it becomes too easy to make the music, it becomes harder to make it good.

I’m reminded of those nights trying to finish projects for studio, when pens run out and supplies dwindle, and you are forced to find alternative solutions that will still allow the idea to come though. And those skills that we develop, those improvisational tools that we find, they go into our bag of tricks for later in our careers. So that we know that we could finish drafting something with a ballpoint if we had too. Not that we’d want to.