Architect Nisha van der Hoven, on writing 'field notes' every week

Since first interviewing Nisha in 2020 for inclusion in 100 Beautiful Things, I've been fascinated by her way of seeing the world - not only as an architect, interior designer and exhibition designer under her multidisciplinary design studio Hoven, but as someone who notices 'otherness' in everyday things. So, when she started her weekly newsletter at the beginning of this year, titled Field Guide to Design, I immediately signed up to get an even deeper look into her practice, and - more impressively - her mind. Nisha van der Hoven's weekly musings, which live on her Substack page, have been so consistent, that they are what spurred me on to ask this question: "How the heck do you manage to show up so consistently?"

And, with this, I launch The Consistency Chronicles: my own consistent creative practice of profiling consistent creatives ;)

What was the promise you made to yourself around these writings of yours, in terms of consistency? 

The original promise was quite simple, to write and share something once a week. I started my Substack, Field Guide to Design in February after a conversation with a friend who was helping me develop my public speaking skills. I was writing so much for talks, presentations and projects but most of those thoughts disappeared once that particular event or project was over. He challenged me to start sharing some of that thinking more publicly. 

Of course, my immediate response was - I’m not a writer. In a way, the first promise was actually less about consistency and more about getting over my preconceived beliefs about writing in order to begin. Once a week felt like enough of a challenge to create momentum. 

Initially the ideas came very easily since I had years of thoughts, projects and observations stored in my headspace and suddenly somewhere to share them. Around 10 weeks in that changed. I started wondering what on earth I was going to write about every week. I questioned if it was interesting enough, was it worth sharing and did I have anything left to actually say. That’s probably when the real exercise in consistency began. 

I haven’t managed to publish something every single week and I’ve had to make peace with that. The promise now is about maintaining the practice and not maintaining a perfect streak.

I think there’s an important distinction between consistency and perfection and I’m learning to navigate this through the process. 

Did you set any other ‘rules’, exceptions or expectations around this? 

I deliberately didn’t create too many rules because I knew I would probably rebel against them! The main premise was that the writing should come from whatever was genuinely occupying my headspace or workspace that week. I didn’t want to have to ‘manufacture’ content just for the sake of having something to share. 

That setup has given me the permission to move quite freely. One week I might be writing about architecture or designing for attention, the next week it might be about colour, clothing, collecting or travel. 

At first I worried that this made the writing feel scattered but the more I write, the more I recognise the threads connecting these seemingly unrelated things together. Curiosity, memory, attention, materiality, the senses, how we experience the world and how those experiences eventually find their way into design. 

The other rule I’ve had to introduce is actually an exception to the rule and that is that sometimes life gets in the way.

There are weeks when my practice is incredibly demanding, or I’m travelling, installing an exhibition, preparing a talk or just exhausted. I’m having to accept that missing a week doesn’t mean I’ve failed at being consistent. I think the important thing is coming back to it. 

What kind of structure have you created to make this happen once a week? 

I wish I could say that every Tuesday morning between 6am and 8am I sit at an immaculate desk with a cup of coffee and write my Substack. That would be a complete lie since my process is far more erratic.

I’m constantly collecting things, whether it’s photographs, screenshots, objects, mental notes of overhead conversations, voice notes to jog my memory, books, materials and articles - all sorts of strange observations. I’ve realised I’ve been building my archive for years. 

Most of my pieces begin somewhere in that archive. Sometimes it’s just a nudge in a particular direction and I follow that lead. I also tend to write in fragments. A title or a sentence often comes first and then the opening paragraph but most weeks I have to sit with it on and off for days before it becomes something more. Other times I know what I want to say but I can’t always find the way in. During the week, I tend to write when I find gaps throughout my day but I’m more consistent and in a flow state when I write over the weekend. 

The weekly rhythm is useful because it creates a deadline and without it I would probably think about an idea indefinitely. Publishing something weekly forces me to take whatever I’ve been grappling with and give it some form and get it out, even when it’s not perfect. So I’m not sure I have mastered a structure for writing consistently but what I have developed is a structure for noticing consistently and the writing comes from that. 

People might say, “Ah, she's just naturally organised, confident and focused about everything.” How would you respond?

I would laugh! There’s definitely a version of me that appears very organised and confident from the outside. I run a design studio, manage multiple projects, give talks, write every weekend and somehow keep a lot of plates spinning. Yes from the outside looking in, everything looks like it’s working but the internal experience is far less polished. 

I procrastinate, I overthink things, I doubt whether my ideas are good enough. I agonise over people that unsubscribe and I compare myself to people who seem to be doing everything better.

Every time I put something into the world, there’s still a moment wondering whether anyone actually needs to hear from me. 

Writing has been particularly confronting because I never considered myself a writer. There was a lot of fear around putting my thinking out there without being able to hide behind a building, or an interior, an exhibition or an image. What I’ve realised is that you don’t gain confidence in something before you actually do it. Sometimes confidence comes with evidence. When you do something once and survive it, then you know you can do it again. Eventually you have twenty-something pieces behind you and the confidence to say that perhaps I can do this. 

So if I appear confident, I suspect it’s just the accumulated evidence that I can keep going despite self doubt. 

What do you do when you’re not feeling up to writing or producing the content? How do you still show up?

Some weeks it genuinely feels like pulling teeth. Those are usually the weeks when I’m putting too much pressure on myself to have something ‘important’ to say. I start looking for the ‘Big Idea’ and convince myself that everything I could possibly write about is either boring or has already been said. I’ve learned to rather go smaller with the idea and more personal. 

It’s interesting because some weeks I will share something and doubt that it will resonate with my audience but instead have such incredible feedback whereas there are other weeks when I’m confident in my piece but have little to no interaction. So I’m constantly questioning these patterns because it also teaches me about my audience and forces me to lean in and listen. 

What have I noticed this week? What has made me laugh? What am I curious about? What object have I picked up? What conversation has stayed with me? What have I photographed three times and why? 

A surprising number of pieces have started with something I regarded as insignificant. A mood ring, a fishing fly, packing a suitcase or returning home from the Karoo and realising my body was moving at a different speed to Johannesburg. The small thing often contains the bigger question. 

Practically, I also don’t force myself to write chronologically. I write little paragraphs until they start feeling like they can be pieced together. 

Sometimes I don’t show up and it’s been important to differentiate between resistance and genuine exhaustion.

I often think we underestimate the need to give ourselves grace and rest instead of pushing through. 

Why has this practice been important to you? 

It started for quite practical reasons. I wanted to become a better public speaker and I wanted to develop my personal voice alongside my practice, Hoven. I also wanted to share more of the thinking behind our work rather than only the finished projects. Of course I also understood that consistently sharing ideas could help build both my personal brand and the studio. 

Since I started, it has become much more important to me than that. Design is often communicated through finished images or a product and we’re all bombarded with the polished photographs of that interior or exhibition, or the object. I’m not disregarding the beauty in that but what interests me is everything underneath the image - all the research, memories, conversations, materials, mistakes, obsessions and detours that made the work possible and writing has given me a place to explore that territory. 

It has also helped me better understand my own practice. Ideas like Fieldwork, which underpin the way we work at Hoven, have become clearer because I’ve had to find language for things that were previously very instinctive. Over time, I find that the writing feeds the design just as much as the design feeds the writing. 

What’s been the greatest gift of the exercise, personally? 

Paying attention and being an amateur at things.

I think writing every week has made me more attentive to my own life.

I notice more because I’m always slightly alert to the possibility that something might be worth following. Doing something that doesn't necessarily have an outcome attached to it is also wonderfully rewarding. As a creative person, the boundary between what you do for a living and what you do because you are curious is often very thin. 

There is also something wonderful about building an archive of yourself and your work. In a sense, each piece captures what I was thinking about or questioning at a particular moment. When I look back, I can identify threads that appeared before I was aware how important they were to me. 

Of course there’s also the people on the other side of it. When someone responds to a piece and says, ‘I do that too,’ or tells me it made them notice something differently, that still surprises me. Writing can feel incredibly solitary while you’re doing it so discovering that it has created a connection with someone else is probably the loveliest part. 

Any professional rewards that have come from putting yourself out there in this way? 

Interestingly, writing has led to more writing. I’ve also been invited to do more interviews, conversations, speaking opportunities and it has definitely strengthened existing collaborations. What has been most interesting is that people are beginning to engage with me through ideas rather than only through completed projects. Someone might contact me because I wrote about colour, or the act of collecting and those conversations can then move into completely unexpected territory. 

It has also allowed people to see more of what sits behind me and my work at Hoven. A photograph of a finished interior can only communicate so much but writing gives me space to talk about why we work the way we do, what we’re researching and what we’re curious about. 

For a practice that stretches across so many design disciplines, that has been incredibly valuable because sometimes the next project we want to do doesn’t exist just yet in our portfolio. By making the thinking visible, you also invite people into your world and I believe that by sharing your thinking you can attract new opportunities on what might come next. 

Any additional advice for someone wishing they could show up more consistently? 

Firstly, I would question the idea that consistency means never missing. We tend to think about consistency in a very algorithmic way. Do this at this time, on this day, this many times a week, but as humans, we don’t operate that way. Life has different seasons and there are periods of intense busyness, weeks when the energy feels endless, and days when absolutely nothing flows. 

For me, consistency requires rigour, but it also requires some grace.

More and more, I think it’s about returning to the thing you said mattered to you, even after you’ve dropped it, or doubted it or become distracted by everything else. 

I also think curiosity is an incredible way of keeping momentum. Pay attention to what keeps pulling at you and collect relentlessly. Keep the strange photograph, write down the arbitrary sentence, save the gorgeous colour combination, pick up the stone. Follow what seems like a useless tangent as not everything needs to have an immediate purpose and you never know what will become important later. 

Don’t wait for confidence, inspiration or certainty. Start before you feel ready and start small enough so that you can actually begin.

We can become so preoccupied with doing something well, or understanding where it might lead, that we never give ourselves the chance to discover what it could become. 

Allow some attempts to be better than others, allow yourself to change your mind and allow the practice to evolve as you do. 

Miss a week if you need to but then come back and begin again. 

Follow Nisha and Hoven Design, and subscribe to her Field Guide to Design.