In the Process Improving the Design

They say that two wrongs do not make a right. However, in mathematics and architecture, two errors may cancel each other out.

Just before my first ever site visit, where I went with a project architect to sort out the builder's questions, I had read somewhere that two errors in a mathematical solution could still approximate the right answer. I could not find who orginally said this, but the following expresses the idea.

Be suspicious of anything that works perfectly. It's probably because two
errors are canceling each other out.-Dave Bartley

The builder had found a discrepancy in the dimenions. Not uncommon. I remember telling the architect that if there was two errors we may be ok. Sure enough at the site a second issue arose. And lo and behold the two issues did manage to cancel each other out. They were solved in the one action and revealed a better way to do things.

Recently in a Sydney Council area I experienced the same effect, on the design. We were designing an addition to a house built in the era of the Federation style. Initally, the Council guidelines discouraged any work to the existing house. The client rather wanted two rooms upstairs. So we ended up with the single storey federation house with a two storey lump on the rear. Articulation was not working really well to compensate. Put simply it looked unbalanced or "wrong". But I was confirmed by Council we could not use the roof space of the exsting, despite having to alter the roof anyway to achieve drainage!

During the Council D.A process the neighbours objected on the gounds of overshadowing, this was despite the two storey addition being a full driveway width away. I proved that we complied. Just. However, we then had to prove the proposal did not overshadow the neighbours deck. We certainly did overshadow. I caculated the shadows. It was ironic, the shadow to the nieghbour's deck perfectly corresponded to that second bedroom. I was pondering this and saw a quite neat solution. We could give the neighbour's sunlight if we could gain a room in the existing roof. After some design in plan I worked in persective. The stairs were used as articulation linking two masses together. It was much more "right". Council liked the new design's perspective better also.

I suspect the complexity of the process means that designers have the opportunity to improve their work where Council design rules combined with client expectations have produced poor outcomes. It is in the inconsistencies we can have play to be brilliant. I found the following by accident. I always thought the beauty was in the exceptions to the rules when learning English at school.

The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The
terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency.
-Albert Einstein