For the first time, the plan for two employees was hard to choose.

At Matsuo Design Office, there are four people, including myself, who come up with plans. Usually, one to three people (mostly no more than two) create the plans. Five years ago, I wrote about 4% of the plans, but now it has decreased to about 1% or so. Sometimes I participate in creating the plans, and sometimes I don't. However, even if I do, if an employee's plan is better, I will adopt that plan. In any case, it goes without saying that I check all the plans before adopting them.

I did not make the plans this time, so it was a one-on-one battle between two people. Usually, I can decide which is better in less than 2 minutes. This was the first time that I could not decide which was better, no matter how many times I looked at the blueprints. Both plans were completely different, but each was very well made.

However...

Looking at the equal-hour shadow diagram, both plans discarded the sunniest spot and focused on the second sunniest spot. "Hmm?" I thought, wondering if there was a better plan, and in the end I decided to make one myself, and started looking into plans. Then, as I considered the requirements, I realized that no matter what I did, I would have to discard the sunniest spot. After careful consideration, we had both come to the same conclusion.

Usually, the losing plan has obvious areas for improvement, not just a matter of taste, but this time both plans were of an extremely high standard. All that was left was for the client to decide. That's how it felt.

Being able to check things like this made me realize the growth of our employees and the long history of the company. Recently, I've had many opportunities to look at drawings from construction companies, and I'm afraid I've often seen drawings that were full of points to point out, or that didn't have the basics down, so perhaps that's why they looked even better. To train a decent designer, you need to show them lots of good works, have them write lots of plans, point out the bad parts and praise the good parts. Repeat this for more than five years. On top of that, you can't get into this field unless the person has the motivation and aptitude... That's what I felt, and it was an extremely satisfying day.