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With public realm clients the paying client is not necessarily the one who’s going to use the project, who has most ambitions for it, who will live with it. If you can actually push up against the boundary and think beyond that, then that influences the centre. It’s in our mindset that people outside the […]

Their experience in considering the broad range of people who will use their urban landscape interventions informs an engagement with all who will use their architecture. Our role was always to bring it back to what it is like spatially and how it can be simplified. Their work is recognised for its innovative role in […]

The brief normally has complexities that are not immediately apparent. The architect is normally the driver for the detailed development of the brief and the process of discovery that this uncovers. Most student projects do not have a real client involved with the project, although real project briefs are often adapted and imaginary clients may […]

A good designer will find another solution if their previous one has been demonstrated as unworkable. It is not only the means by which buildings are built, it is also a vehicle for solving problems, experimentation, improving skills and communication of new ideas. It is important to remember that neither the process of design nor […]

290 Mulberry is a residential building located in the NoLita district of New York. The design focused on creating a single undulating panel that could be used repeatedly in different configurations on corners, around windows, and at the base and top, and yet still give a lively and varied form to the fagade. In addition, […]

There are other ways beyond diagrams to describe the process of design but these also have their own limitations. SHoP Architects PC: 290 Mulberry The design process Despite the limitations of trying to define individual design processes there is a value in only being able to report a retrospective and partial version of events; we […]

The third diagram, ‘systematic production of alternatives’, shows a designer who is consciously setting up several alternative approaches and exploring them before using critical judgement to make a decision. The fourth diagram, ‘forming alternatives in a multi-step process’, describes a designer who will develop multiple solutions but with self-imposed constraints to reduce the number of […]

Their concept was therefore to design a building that would in effect become an occupied facade and their treatment of this would ensure that the shop would advertise itself as effectively as a billboard. Just look at it. Their multi-disciplinary practice encompasses architecture, interiors, public spaces and installations. One of the most striking qualities of […]

This becomes part of the architect’s developing design process. [An architectural concept] ‘should be something that overrides all scales. An architectural concept would need to be so clear that it runs through all scales and once that’s communicated and understood, any problem on site, at any scale, should be able to be solved.’ Judith Losing, […]

The discipline constantly escapes attempts to define it in absolute terms. However, a concept can be far more than a creative problem­solving device. The design process Earlier in the chapter, we discussed the predictive optimism, enhanced perception, empirical invention and craft of the architect. This is why we are all fascinated by, and can engage […]