Tag: DesignBrief

What shall we do a with a no-brief client?

(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…

Make a little time for design

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…

Begin design with observation (part 1)

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….

Re-inventing the wheel(ie bin)

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 loop the loop

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…

Kinetic versus thermodynamic conversations

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….

Design versus Shopping

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…

Carbon vs everything else: system health vs system outputs

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…

Find the disputable brief in your project

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…

How do I know if my ideas are any good?

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…

The Designer’s Paradox – the key to unlocking the brief

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…

How do you know if your idea is any good?

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…

Does your project need a creative boost?

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…

Proust, constructivism and listening to clients

This week I underlined this sentence from Proust’s Finding Time Again.  “Even at the moments when we are the most disinterested onlookers of nature, of society, of love,…

Brief explosion – starting a creative project

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…

Filling the Kalideascope – creative inputs in the moment

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…

Training course – Introduction to Conceptual Design for Structural Engineers

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…

Working notes on feedback as a design tool

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…

It’s the invisible ingredients in the design dough that makes it rise

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 –…

Unreliable briefs – finding the deeper design narrative

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…

Developing a design brief: asking the bigger questions

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…