What makes work "stand out"?

Last Friday was HCA's third (and potentially last) Connected Class and so our big question was a combination of several different ones all along the lines of what makes work "good" or "stand out". The video we watched (and you can watch it here) was a TED talk by Thomas Hetherwick. His work stands out to me for a couple of reasons; it's innovative and unconventional, but not for the sake of it. For example, he didn't re-design the power station just because he could. He was solving problems and there was a thought process behind every element. He clearly considers the space in which his designs will exist and how they will interact with it's current inhabitants. 

We also discussed the future of our cclasses and I'm so pleased that we've decided to continue. It's been such a great experience and I've really enjoyed the collaborative element by taking the classes with students from different subject areas.