Interviews with the Founders – Ryan Abernathy on Dreaming Big with DROP Structures
Check out DROP Structures’ Instagram feed and you’ll get a hint of the dream behind the business – the rugged mountains, dense forests and placid lakes with a lone, simple structure that perfectly fits into the sweeping vistas.
For Ryan Abernathy, one of the three founders of DROP Structures, those photos aren’t just good marketing. These images are an integral part of what DROP Structures aims to create, and stems from an old pet peeve.
“As a photographer, it used to annoy me when I focused on a beautiful landscape only to find it marred by an ugly building,” Ryan said.
Where form inspires function
For many people, a building is defined by the function it serves– a house protects a family, a shed protects tools and an office gives people a space to work. This puts function firmly in front of form, pushing aesthetics to the backburner. But that didn’t make sense to Ryan, who still sees things through a photographer’s lens.
“A choice between utility and aesthetics is a false one,” he said.
A DROP Structure, like a good photograph, is first defined by its form, with the function of the subject working within the aesthetic. Whether a customer wants a quiet cabin in the woods or a private office in their back yard, each DROP Structure accomplishes the same goal: a building specifically designed to inspire dreams.
Creating inspiration
We tend to put a hard line between the artist and his or her muse, and everyday life. So while a beautiful picture can rise to earn its place of honour on a wall, or in a museum, a simple building – a room for playing or working – isn’t on the same level. But, for Ryan, art shouldn’t be set aside, beyond the realm of everyday life, leaving everything else worthless except for its function.
“Just because something is mundane doesn’t mean it has to be ugly,” he said. “I saw a video of a housekeeper that made a bed in 7 seconds – now that’s art.”
To Ryan, this is art – not art with a capital ‘A’ that spends most of its time hanging on museum walls, but art that’s more ordinary, but no less beautiful because of it.
Whether we’re looking at a spring flower, a sculpture, or our office, the beauty of our surroundings has an effect on us. To ignore the inspiration design and beauty can bring is to leave our lives a little duller.
A place to dream big
DROP Structures, both their business and their buildings, exists to inspire people to dream.
It was a dream that brought the three founders together in that first DROP Structure, and it’s that same dream that continues to push them to do their best in designing and creating pre-fab buildings that inspire.
This starts in the boardroom, with discussions, designs and dreams. But, where it finds fulfilment is not when it’s built, or even when it’s placed, but when each client sits down in their DROP Structure space and finds that spark of creativity to do what they do best: dream big.