The Wrong Questions

Does it work? I get asked, as I’m shown a school plan for the first time.  Do you think it’s fit for purpose?  asks my guide around a new school.  What’s wrong with our schools? asks yet another single minded journalist.

 

My response is to answer a different set of questions.  What can we learn from this plan? Do we have a clear purpose?  What‘s great about our schools?  By persisting in our search for mistakes we make it harder to explore the new: we make it harder to change.  Change is not a constant - it is a risk we take to make the world better.

 

Perhaps we ask the ‘wrong questions’ so often because we have already made up our minds about the answers.  If we know all the answers then design has little purpose. Questions are central to challenging and transforming our environment.  Good design is both a difficult choice made and a thoughful answer to a genuine question.