I Call It the Eureka Moment – When the Solution to a Design Problem Suddenly Becomes Clear, Just When Hope Is on the Verge of Being Lost

The Eureka Moment is what I call it to myself. That Moment when, usually after a long and exhausting struggle, the idea emerges.

It’s that Moment, when, after pursuing a fleeting thought, a promising thought, it finally evolves beyond a rough sketch – or dozens of rough sketches – and false starts.

Before the form takes shape, it sometimes teases, torments – like waking up from a dream and remembering only fragments, but tantalizing ones, of a narrative that can’t quite be pieced together.

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The Moment can arrive suddenly, magically and abruptly, almost immediately after beginning an exploration... or more often in my own experience, when hope is on the verge of being lost. And sometimes it is... sometimes the answer remains inchoate, formless, flawed.

When the solution does appear, however, it’s easy to recognize. It’s irresistible... it’s undeniable... it makes your heart beat faster. I like to hope that it’s also universal – of course, my client will see it and recognize that this is the way. Sadly, so sadly, that’s not always the case.

The story has it that the expression comes from the ancient polymath Archimedes, who shouted 'Eureka!', the Greek expression for 'I have found it!' when he solved a previously incomprehensible problem: realizing that the volume of an irregular object could be measured by the amount of water displaced.

Vitruvius tells this discovery in De Architectura, describing how Archimedes observed when he sank into his tub that an equal amount of water overflowed. In realizing this, he ran naked and jubilant through the streets of Syracuse, yelling 'Eureka!!! Eureka!!!

Over the past few years, I’ve been working on our inaugural book, On Artistry, which is coming out in September. The focus is on our collaborations with artists and artisans, how we work together to make crafted and deeply personal places.

The cover shot of the book (above) recalls a memorable Eureka Moment. We were designing a home for a wonderful Chicago family – they were dream clients: curious about design, open, literate, civic-minded. They cared deeply about education, reading, history, and family.

They had recently bought a home in a vintage 1920s building for their next chapter, now that their four boys were grown. The apartment plan had diagonal circulation cutting across the space, leading to oddly proportioned rooms. The orientation of the apartment was spectacular, with views of Lake Michigan to the northeast, across three bays of windows, and a magnificent sightline to a private terrace to the southwest. The floorplan is below.

During an early design meeting, we asked the couple about places that were special to them. The wife lit up and began telling us about the home where they raised their four boys.

The scene she set was evocative – four young boys tumbling into the house, covered in snow, shedding boots and snowsuits in the entry, gathering by the foyer fireplace where she would read to them. These memories moved us, and we decided that, of course, we needed to have a fireplace in the entry hall of the new place, recalling the boys’ childhood home. Having an entry that set the tone and immediately, and dramatically, introduced the home beyond was part of the design brief.

The entry sequence story unfolded easily and readily from that moment. Well, of course, the room would have a center table piled high with books. And naturally, there would be stools tucked under the table for those who wanted to stop and pause by the fireplace. And yes, our very talented friend Michele Costello would create the most beautiful moss green leather wall paneling, tooled with gold, that recalled the owners’ book collection and love of libraries.

These ideas were not, however, the Eureka Moment for this project. While we were sailing through defining the project’s design direction, we were struggling with the floor plan. Really struggling.

The project was to be a gut renovation. The spaces were deep with limited access to sunlight. While the views were stunning and the perimeter light generous, there were large areas that were far from the windows. One entry foyer, one kitchen, one living room, one dining room, one powder room, one family room, one office, one library, one bar, one pantry, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, one mudroom, one laundry, one terrace. It seemed that the three of us on the project labored through every possible permutation. And then we hit on it.

From the entry, we would design a library gallery, 14 feet wide by 60 feet long (below), that would connect the family room and terrace beyond to the living room with its water views, from the garden to the lake in one 95 foot vista. That gallery would be lined with bookshelves on one side, housing their collection, and comfortable seating by the windows on the other side.

The pieces fell into place. The kitchen, at the center of the apartment, would borrow light from the gallery and the adjacent dining room, with oeil de boeuf windows looking onto the living room and Lake Michigan beyond.

There is a feeling of anticipation that happens before the Eureka Moment, a recognition that the first piece has fallen into place. It’s what I imagine codebreakers enjoy when they’ve decrypted a cipher, a sort of sensory perception to cracking a lock.

Upon discovering this plan solution, the project sort of unfurled itself like a map. Here were the disparate fragments of our vision working in concert; here was the missing element. Here were the parquet de Soubise panels in oak, and here is where they transition to limestone. Here were the perfect sculptural sconces to light the path...

When I’m in the thick of this process, I try to keep some lessons learned over the years front of mind.

Do not be afraid of the chaos that precedes the Eureka Moment. Do not be alarmed if at some point the project looks strange and unfamiliar to you, if the elements are discordant, misaligned. Consider this as a sign that you’re exploring something new – who wants to design the same thing on repeat? Trust that this is a phase and you’ll work through it. Hone your instincts, practise your craft, record what you see.

You cannot force a Eureka Moment – the mechanisms of sudden strokes of genius are so rare, wild, fleeting, deep, and pretty mysterious, or we’d be replicating them all the time.

In Goethe’s words, it’s a Moment of 'a mysterious power which everyone senses and no philosopher explains...'

Interior designer Joan Craig is one of Homes & Gardens' Editors-At-Large for By Design, where she shares her thoughts on decor. See the rest of her articles here.

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