Slow

The Slow Food movement describes itself as an organisation that brings together pleasure and responsibility and makes them inseparable. It is an alternative to a life lived too fast.

Irrespective of how one chooses to eat, combining responsibility and pleasure underlines the importance of thinking first about the impact on the quality of our lives and on those around us of the decisions we make.

Design needs to be responsible. Design should be pleasurable. Do we design too fast? Maybe. But I suspect that the most important issue is that of imagination. The slow food movement dares to imagine another way of living. Good design springs from the same leap of faith that things can be different: that the irreconcilable can be resolved.

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Snow

Snow has a way of revealing both hidden beauty and hidden weakness. Even unprepossessing buildings can look radiant clothed in glistening layers of white water. And some snowclad buildings can assume an unlikely fairytale stature in the transformed landscape.

But snow is also insiduous in seeking out detailed flaws and thwarted assumptions – that water normally runs downhill, or that roofs can support the weather. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing – invasive and innocent in equal measure.

Snow reminds us that we are not designing for a set of meteorological parameters but for difficult days in everybody’s lives when walking becomes an adventure and getting to work becomes a nightmare. Snow reminds us that design is not a fair weather activity.

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Useful and Helpful

Among my frequently asked questions is – how do you measure your work? That’s a fair question. I spent a fair chunk of the 1980s doing investment appraisal analysis, which only proved to me the prevalence of a well known decision making technique called backfilling the data. So, how do I answer this?

First of all I tell them what I don’t do. I don’t focus on those things that can be easily measured rather than those things that need to be done. I don’t manipulate unique projects to make them look like they contribute to a set of generic metrics. In essence, I say that measurement of outputs is secondary to their impact on outcomes. So how do I keep on track?

The first way is to challenge my own motives for doing the work. The second is to ask those I’m working with if it’s useful and helpful. And the third is to ask those I work for whether it makes a difference. As Groucho Marx once said - Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?

Have a great Christmas and may we all make a difference in 2010.

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Acquired Taste

At this time of year the magazines are full of lists: the top ten best films, books of the year, best board games etc. It is a lesson in fallibility to realise how many great products and ideas of their age are now forgotten, and how some that were ignored or criticised at the time have survived and become admired. Think of writers touched by genius like John Keats, or now iconic films like ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.

Some designs are an acquired taste. Some create a great first impression that wanes with acquaintance. Some do neither, or both. Some become detached from their original purpose or meaning – like the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe.

The point is that buildings cannot be judged like an X Factor competitor. To really judge a building you need to live with it for a while, and place it in the context of your own life. There are no infallible criteria for design – just lives lived for the better.

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Casting

When the endless screen credits role, they invariably include the names of the Casting Directors. Choosing the right people for the right roles is obviously a critical starting point for any creative endeavour. Of course every good actor can act, but some are quite simply better suited to some types of roles than others.

Perhaps, according to movie casting mythology, Ronald Reagan would indeed have made a convincing Rick – the Humphrey Bogart role in the film Casablanca - but it wouldn’t be the classic we know and love. Casting makes a critical difference.

Not surprisingly, this also applies to designers. Choosing the right designers for a project is a prerequisite for a successful outcome. Even if we listen to those who say that all professionally qualified architects are by definition good designers – they are not all good in the same way.

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City of the Year

The Academy of Urbanism presented its awards last Friday. The 2010 categories were for European City of the Year, as well as for Great Towns, Neighbourhoods, Streets, and Places. And it was infectious to be in a room full of diverse people with a shared enthusiasm for places that quite simply make life better in so many different ways. Whether driven by an architectural legacy, or a passion for ideas – the common message that came across was the importance of key individuals with a relentless commitment to a particular place and its people

The winner of the European City of the Year Award for 2010 was Freiburg 'a model for sustainability across the globe'. In the Academy’s appreciation there are two short sentences which are inspiring in their directness and simplicity:

Freiburg functions well.

Freiburg has much to teach us.

Those would seem to be worthwhile aspirations for all of us when creating everyday places that deserve our everyday plaudits.

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Knots

One argument goes that if we don’t define what we want then we might get something we don’t want. On the other hand if we specify too tightly then we miss out on exploring better, unforeseen answers. There is a verse of modern poetry by RD Laing, from his book 'Knots', which captures this situation:

If I don’t know I don’t know

I think I know




If I don’t know I know

I think I don’t know

We may need to read his words twice – but we all recognise the bewildering truth he describes. There is a crucial question at the heart of every brief: are we trying to define an answer or define a question? If you believe, as I do, that design is much more than a means of delivering utility, then the answer lies in getting the questions right.

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