Tag: DesignBrief
This week I’ve been making the case for a continuous, place-based approach to design. As James Norman and I set out in the Regenerative Structural Engineer, we see…
(To the tune of “What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor”) Chorus: What shall we do with a no-brief client? What shall we do with a no-brief…
Things are just a bit too busy right now. I don’t really have much time to think about my design process. Or so it goes. But here’s the…
We often think of design as starting with a design brief—a set of requirements outlining what we want. But when seen through a regenerative lens, design begins differently….
Yesterday, I wrote about improving how we manage poo at Hazel Hill. One particular challenge our staff face is dealing with three of our most “productive” toilets. These…
Design is a continuous, looping process. It is a loop that begins with observing a situation, then establishing a brief for your work, developing ideas, and testing those…
Some conversations go quickly. Some conversations go better. I wrote on the 21st October about the difference between a kinetic and a thermodynamic product in a chemical reaction….
If the client knows exactly what they want at the start of a design process, then it isn’t design – it’s shopping. Shopping for the answer that you’ve…
I’m getting this down while it is fresh in my mind following a planning conversation with Will Arnold this morning for our Net Zero Structural Design course. In…
The disputable brief is a term I’ve coined to describe the bits of the brief that make your project worthwhile and different. It is easy to write a…
It’s a simple question. When I ask people what they want to get out of a training course with me on design or creativity, a common answer is…
For me the Designer’s Paradox is a key concept in helping people understand what the process of design is. The term was coined by my colleague at Think…
I regularly ask this question on my ‘How to Have Better Ideas’ workshops (the sequel to ‘How to Have Ideas’). It’s a short question that triggers a wide…
Here’s four things you can do straight away to give your project a creative boost. Write down the brief. What are you trying to do? Who are you…
My starting point for gathering inputs to a creative project is the working brief. The technique that I use with participants in my workshops is what I call…
In my last post I described the Kalideascope as a tool for having ideas. You fill it with inputs and then turn it to create new the connections…
This course, which I deliver at Constructivist for the Institution of Structural Engineers is my longest running conceptual design training course. It is an introductory course, which splits…
This week I ran a workshop with undergraduate students at Imperial College working in design teams at imperial. the aim was to show that it is much easier…
There used to be a sign outside a bakery in London that said something along the lines of, ‘it’s the invisible ingredients – love, care and attention –…
It is tempting to think of a design brief as wholly reliable, a document that contains all the information necessary to execute the design. But design briefs are…
When developing a design brief, it is tempting to start by constraining the problem – by clarifying, by simplifying, by cutting out. But if we want to make…