All of the key players need to recognise their own dissatisfaction and start making changes.. “I don’t just feel the shift,” she says.
While there is undoubted value in the aesthetic and power in iconic objects and structures, in the end true value comes from the people within.We can become obsessed by the physical, by the building.
I have observed many times that we have a great tendency to grasp too early for the physicality of buildings - I need a factory, a hospital, a data centre etc - when they are just labels for the human and human-created activities within.Design to Value.book the introduction includes the words: -.
“What if we look past the hospital building and see the journeys of a thousand patients, past the factory and reflect upon the launch of a lifesaving treatment, past the data centre and muse upon millions of connected people.”.We know it is through relationships, actions, innovations, and interactions of people; in the context of the global environment and ecosystem, where value is created or destroyed.
The built environment can augment or detract from those value-creating processes, however often the buildings are just like robes, they keep the rain off and the warmth in..
In collaborative design processes, if you can achieve this kind of focus on the purpose of the work and the people who create the value; bringing together client, design disciplines, stakeholders, and experts; each with their ideas, concerns, knowledge, creativity, and humility, therein lies the opportunity for exquisite outcomes..Each party does what they are best at and this includes the client.
Having spent many years in projects I realised that our allocation of work is so often skewed by a mode of thinking and processes that ultimately destroys value.We design detailed pipework with a one-stop-shop engineering company only to go through the ignominy of having it completely redesigned by the fabricator with the knowledge of manufacturing and construction.
We allow designers to make educated guesses for design decisions only for subject matter experts to critique and change.Finding ways to get the right people to do the right work at the right time is the first principle of an integrated approach.. Design is not a linear and regressive process.