Chaos & Order
Infinity, caught in a fragile form.
In college I spent a lot of time trying to visualize chaos, or infinity — since the two feel related. I built sculptures with inward-facing mirrors woven together with twine, creating an endless uneven matrix of natural fiber. Other times I twisted tin siding from Home Depot into curling shapes or pulled glass slides into tight orbs with wire. They were fragile, messy, a bit like chrysalises. I realize now I go into that same protective state when I’m doing my deepest thinking, when I’m transforming.
Founders’ Room at Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA.
Working with Frank Gehry, I saw chaos treated as a design principle. Irregularly distributed lights scattered across curved ceilings, walls that bent and disoriented. But beneath every curve was a rigorous structure. To engineer a Gehry building, you had to learn how to take the impossible and break it into steps — to organize chaos until it worked. I remember telling Frank once that something couldn’t be done. He cut me off: never is never an answer. There’s always a way. It may cost more money, but don’t say never. That lesson trained me to generate solutions, to balance the unbuildable with the pragmatic, to find the order hidden inside disorder.
Gehry Partners Offices in Los Angeles, CA.
Even our office reflected that balance. At ground level, Gehry Partners was a maker’s hive — desks piled with sketches, cardboard models, and foam. The energy felt chaotic, teams expanding or contracting with each project phase. But from the mezzanine, order snapped into focus. The desks themselves were custom-designed L-shapes that could be reconfigured every quarter to fit the needs of each project. What looked messy up close was, from above, as precise and efficient as the hexagonal architecture of my honeybees — maximizing strength and space with the least material.
My bees in August, organization underpins their chaos.
My garden reflects that same balance. The edible garden is precise — raised beds where I map every square foot, rotate crops, amend soil, and track companions with software. Two beehives sit inside the fence, working in tandem with the plants. This year, next to all that order, I planted a long swath of wildflowers. They look unruly, buzzing with life, seeded by chance, fed by weather. Chaos, right up against order. Both have their own kind of beauty — one planned, one surrendered. Together they remind me of Gehry’s lesson: disorientation, structure, wildness, rigor. Chaos doesn’t cancel out order; it needs it.
My vegetable garden in August.
Honeycomb from my bees, earlier this year.