The Big Picture

Economic need dictates that we deliver building projects with a sense of urgency.  Indeed why would we delay improving the delivery of public services to our communities. As always, this means pursuing the right design solutions in a timely and well managed manner. 

But there is one crucial question we all need to ask whenever we are tempted to default to the least troublesome route to our individual project delivery: will this help Scotland deliver more for less across the public sector? 

These days, we are all responsible for ‘the big picture’. 

Read more...

Legacy

The Olympics finished yesterday, and today the talk is all about ‘legacy’. Reminds me of the question typically asked the day after a new building gets opened: “Well that was good – now what difference is it going to make?”

Shiny photographs of new architecture without people only serve to underline the focus on project completion. Job done. Well done. And we should never take that achievement for granted.  But the purpose of buildings is not to be built, but to create  . . . a legacy.

So, perhaps the real test for any new school bulding is: what happens next?

Read more...

Offices

What can the design of school environments learn from the design of office environments? As someone who strongly believes that ‘informed plagiarism’ is the most effective way to approach most problems, my answer would be – a lot. 

However, it is striking just how much the commercial sector has learnt from the innovative spaces being created within the education sector. Yes, the brief for any company workplace strives for efficiency – but it will also prioritise creativity, innovation, and collaboration as essential elements of the modern , successful business. Sound familiar?

When we compare schools to offices let’s remember that both are about outcomes and both are about people. 

Read more...

Qualities

We may know what we want to do in a school building and how we want it to feel – but the way in which we respond to these within a perfect storm of constraints is where design really matters.

Much of what we typically call a brief is a contractual specification setting out not only the requirements but often the detailed characteristics of the preferred answer. An authentic expression of the building qualities we most value in any unique context gives us the most relevant framework to make decisions and rise to the right challenges.

The first question of any design becomes – is this an answer with the qualities we are looking for? If our initial constraints seem to make this impossible then we need to look again at why we are doing what we are doing, or use the power of design to redefine the art of the possible.

Read more...

Fuel

Campbeltown pupils imagining modern alternatives to the traditional classroom. Edinburgh pupils exploring innovative settings for personal learning.

It’s tempting to focus on the excellent creative outputs from these unfettered imaginations. But the real joy, the revelation for designers at all levels, is the power of the conversation itself. There is a raw power in the words and images pupils employ in articulating their insights and creativity. In my experience this provides the best fuel in the world for designers.

Good ideas are hard to come by. We should be thankful that in the design of schools our emerging clients have such ideas in abundance.

Read more...

Defaults

Just because a particular choice is ubiquitous doesn’t mean it’s not the right choice. The important thing is to make each and every choice with the same amount of care rather than letting them become defaults.

‘Default: A particular setting or value for a variable that is assigned automatically by an operating system and remains in effect unless cancelled or overridden by the opertator.’

Design is always about careful decision making and never about unthinking defaults.

Read more...

Clearings

Walking in a forest is often defined by the chance happening upon a clearing or a glimpse of spaces beyond. In other words, the enjoyment of the forest is heightened by the presence of contrasts.

The same applies to an oasis in the desert, a walled garden in the city, or a rest in music. In trying to create remarkable places we need to resist the temptation to relentlessly repeat the same ideas – as if our experiences could be endlessly cloned. We need to provide respite and contrast, a sense of discovery and exploration, and a sense of uniqueness in the midst of similarity.

Read more...

Patterns

Sometimes we can see a pattern emerging which we don’t like. Circumstances conspire to move us inexorably in a direction we don’t want to go. The design process can sometimes seem like that: the procurement process even more so.

Overcoming the inertia in such patterns is a formidable task, but the alternative is to arrive somewhere we don’t want to be. As in physics it needs either the application of a large force, or relentless resistance, to disrupt these patterns and change direction.

Nobody said it was going to be easy.

Read more...

Footsteps

Individuals make a difference. A school can be altered for a generation by the commitment of a single teacher, designer, or civil servant - all those who defy the limits of their labels.

But, like many relationships, we tend only to realise their impact when they move on. We then have a choice: accept the consequences or fill the gap. We cannot always depend on remarkable people to create remarkable schools.

The challenge for us remaining flawed mortals is to find the means to step forward in their place.

Read more...

Astonishing

At a recent conference on school design, an eminent Scottish architect prefaced his comments to a keynote speaker with ”Well that was astonishing . . . but not in a good way”.

Direct and open debate is often diluted when it is prefaced by caveats. It is often enlivened by the honest recognition of visceral responses to the sound of beliefs being broken. To my mind, that comment allowed passion into the discussion and patted several elephants in the room. And it was an articulate reminder of the power of architecture to celebrate the values we care about most.

Good architecture has the power to astonish us . . . in a good way.

Read more...

Concordare

A Latin word: to agree. Whether it’s joined up thinking or collaborative working or shared services or total place, the fundamental step is to get diverse people to agree on something and see it through in pursuit of an agreed purpose.

The simple but challenging technique of getting the right people together and creating a collective responsibility for making things happen is now the default for the way we resolve our big service and resource issues.

The output may be a contract, or an action plan, or indeed a Concordat, but the real outcome is the recognition that, ultimately, problems can only be resolved in the places where we work and live by the people who work and live there.

Read more...

The Wee Society

Scale matters. I am as guilty as anyone else of writing paragraphs which try and cover all the bases:

‘This unique place . . . responding to the street . . . engaging the neighbourhood . . . at the heart of the community . . . contributing to the town’s regeneration . . . building a regional capital . . . delivering national policy . . . an international exemplar.’

But this Russian doll approach to the narrative of a place can have the unintended consequence of confusing those who live there about the real reasons for change.

We are often asked the question – who is your audience – as if the development of the places we live was primarily an exercise in sales and marketing. Perhaps the question we need to focus on is ‘in whose name are you doing this?’.

Read more...

Arbour

The idea of a safe place seems to have been hijacked by the need for secure places. They are not necessarily the same thing.

Feeling safe is central to our sense of wellbeing. So, what makes us feel safe? As always, the most direct way to answer that question is to ask people. Whatever their responses, it is likely that it relies less on the calculus of insurance companies and more on personal circumstances and local context.

Yes, we need places that are secure. But we also need places that make people feel safe in a way that means something to them as individuals.

Read more...

Slow Cities

At the heart of deliberations about our cities and towns is an assumption about speed. Whether it’s economists debating the velocity of circulation of money or educationalists the rate of change of technology, the implication is that quicker is better. Ergo we need to plan for places that can move fast.

But speed is not the same as agility. Whether it’s a school corridor or a high street, being aware of one’s surroundings in a thoughful way is a key feature of belonging to a place. Details matter. Moments count. Individuals, rather than systems, loom large.

Successful places are not assembly lines fuelled by high speed empathy. Perhaps we need slower places that build on considered thought rather than blurred impulses.

Read more...

Another U-Turn

“I’ve started so I’ll finish . . . “ seems to be the rule when looking at masterplans – or indeed any Gantt chart laden project.

In the context of a project plan this makes a lot of sense. In the context of the real world it can lead to crazy outcomes. So do we cleave to the first idea we all bought into: the one we staked our reputation on. Or do we risk the career destroying headlines (‘Another U Turn from . . . ‘) and change our mind because it’s the right thing to do?

Resilience is not only about adaptable strategies. It is also about a culture where switching strategies is recognised as the grown up response to change.

Read more...

Begin Anywhere

We need to change the Place. But that means we need to change the Silos. But that means we need to change the Organisation. But that means we need to change the System. . . . And so it goes.

John Cage famously wrote ‘Begin Anywhere’. In the real world – the one beyond Taylorism and Classicism – that seems like good advice. At least if we are going to make change happen anytime this side of the next new Millennia.

So, whatever the obstacle is that we encounter – that’s the one to change.

Read more...

Valueless

I’ve got used to hearing the statement “We’d get rid of that building but it isn’t worth anything”. My reaction is always the same: “I’ll take it then”.

Certainly, some buildings are falling down, some lend themselves to no obvious purpose, and some are mired in bureaucracy. But no value at all . . really? I suspect that this stock of valueless buildings is massive. I also suspect that we all know many worthy organisations and worthwhile purposes that are desperately looking in vain for a home.

Our challenge is to use design to find ways of turning these liabilities into assets, and to use our power and imagination to release the potential for good in our valueless buildings.

Read more...

Media

Sometimes I get interviewed by journalists. No matter how carefully you choose your words the feeling persists that in amongst those seemingly reasonable answers to seemingly reasonable questions you have offered an unfortunate quote out of context.

So the choice is simple. Say nothing of any consequence, at length. Or use the opportunity to talk about things that really matter to you in language that conveys some sense of your passion and principles.

Like design without courage, words without heart make us complicit in the acceptance of the unacceptable.

Read more...

Hong Kong

From the aircraft window a panorama exploited in a hundred movies. On the ground a reminder that the English language has a rival.

Travel shows us other ways of living and makes us reconsider the things we take for granted. Design is a way of imagining what those other ways might mean for us and how to reinvent the conventional into the extraordinary.

A logical way of looking at airport design is the transformation of the flight timetable, a work of imagination, into an historical document. Neat, but misses the big picture. Another way is to look at the ripples of life changes and life chances that radiate from those journeys.

Read more...

Sydney

It’s winter in Sydney. Torrential rain, ash clouds, and stormy debates about the effectiveness of $16 billion investment in school buildings as a key part of Australia’s Economic Stimulus Plan.

It reminds me that what happens in our schools is important not only to our pupils and our communities and to learning – but also to our economies. When we say that schools must be seen in context we mean the whole context. When we say that our children are our future – we mean it.

Irrespective of which economic models prevail, schools are at the heart of any nation’s future.

Read more...