Design Strategy

I can see your eyes glaze over when I say design strategy. I’ve lost you already. It does sound like one of those phrases that really doesn't mean anything, or maybe means too much. An odd word pairing that sort of cancels each other out, somehow mixing specificity with uncertainty. If your glazed eyes have taken a break at this point and done a quick search I wouldn't blame you, but would guess that you’ve probably come back unsatisfied and maybe a little annoyed with the jargon. Why is that? Design strategies can make sense, like when you are at the early stages of developing a project and exploring different approaches that focus on particular goals. So, does that mean design strategy is the practice of developing and evaluating a project’s design strategies? Oh boy, trapped in a circle of nonsense. I like to think about a project’s design strategy as the rules of the game. Rules that allow collaborators, large complex teams, and stakeholders to develop design solutions, make decisions, and move forward together. Rules that the project will follow to achieve a specific intent, operate in a particular way in context, set clear limits, create common understanding, and help manage change. Sometimes a design strategy can be the end itself (like when used as a planning tool), a method to guide decisions, or the groundwork for an efficient design process. When powered by immersive insight, a clever design strategy can transcend, connect, and inspire design specialties. 

Starting a project in hot pursuit of prescriptive design solutions just might have the opposite effect and end up stopping it in its tracks, or stuck in a rut. Sometimes specificity gets in the way. A public affairs college had a complex puzzle to solve. Accommodate strategic growth, identify areas that could be contracted, or eliminated, while maximizing existing assets. Over time, they had grown organically occupying a mismatched series of spaces that hampered collaboration, growth planning, desired interactions, and daily operations. Planning future growth and reorganization using the same approach would no longer work. The pieces were growing too big and becoming too disconnected. The team was tasked with figuring out how they would reorganize themselves, what resources would be required, and to propose a clear phased implementation plan. The plan needed to be dynamic, subject to multiple ongoing revisions and approvals, and had to leave room to be opportunistic to be able to react to the market or take full advantage of particular expertise. They hired a well respected planning and architecture consultant to help. They got a design solution. One layered with assumptions that have not held up. And while some of these variables could be managed, the project would be ongoing, and require perpetual redesign. The worst question in design starts with, “Do you want…?” (sometimes substituting the word need for want thinking that makes a difference). $ure…

The more thoughtful approach for this project would have been to develop a clear design strategy. (But glazed eyes can be intimidating, there’s a reason why people don’t talk about this to clients.) A design strategy that creates a set of efficient rules to help end users understand their organization spatially, implement dynamic utilization techniques, and develop organizational and allocation principles. Principles that not only guide programmatic needs, but also a building’s capabilities and capacities. Practical applications for how to think about spatial growth and operational growth at the same time, and have them inform each other. A more nuanced understanding of the relationship between physical size (spatial growth) and activity size (operational growth). Still glazey? A little. Let’s talk.