outcomes

The Limits of Good Design

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What is good design? Historically, our perception of design has tended towards tangible outputs such as artefacts, physical systems and buildings. Yet this singular focus on product can lead to unintended consequences detrimental to people and planet. Shifting perspectives to include organisational and process design recognises the broader system in which design takes place, and places value on the intangible, towards longer-term outcomes. Authors of Designing Tomorrow, Martin Tomitsch and Steve Baty discuss how we can harness designer’s skill sets toward more long-term and systemwide perspectives, so rather than solely focusing on physical outcomes that can contribute to planetary problems, designers can be part of the solution in the improvement of livelihoods and a safer planet.

As the famous Eames quote goes, “The details are not details, they make the product”. This observation equally applies to designing physical structures, built environments, digital interactions, and services. It’s the details that make or break the experience.

But while focusing on the details, it is important to also keep the bigger picture in mind. When it comes to better briefing for design, the details make the outputs; the outcomes are shaped by the big-picture considerations. An output might take the form of a building or a website. The outcome is the impact that emerges from putting the building or website into the world.

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Disrupting Practice: Findings from the Practice Innovation Lab

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As we shift from a focus on delivering outputs (buildings and artefacts) towards achieving meaningful change and long-term sustainable outcomes, we’re curious about the new business models that will emerge in practice. In developing the Integrative Briefing for Better Design book, we’ve found it useful to reflect back to look forward and share Evelyn Lee‘s reflections from The Practice Innovation Lab, an American Institute of Architects 2017 forum which explored new business models.

In the fall of 2017, 60 individuals from the design and architecture professions came together with the intent to identify ways to innovate the dated business models on which most design practices are founded. Hosted by the Young Architects Forum of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Practice Innovation Lab was a series of discussions focused on enhancing both the value of our services and the sustainability of the design profession over the long term.

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You have to be there

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In our July Sounding Panel session on Transformative Design, Adrian Leaman reiterated the five most important things to think about in architectural briefing…

The next time you see Sam Cassels – and it ideally it should be in person – get him to tell you the story of the nervous presenter confronted with an overhead projector, and baffled by the way it worked, so that every time he tried to say something he stood in front of the projected light image, thereby blocking the projection, thus preventing the audience from having any clue of what he was talking about. Which made him even more jittery and incomprehensible. The presenter should have followed Michael Caine’s advice to young actors: don’t blink, it makes you look weak.  

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