It’s a somewhat odd situation considering that the construction industry is inherently a collaborative one.
In parallel, architecture has become acutely, myopically object-oriented, celebrating the product rather than the process.In unison, these routes have led the discipline into a service-centered approach, one that seeks to hastily resolve problems rather than solve them holistically, carefully and analytically.. What if we look past the hospital building and see the journeys of a thousand patients, past the factory and reflect on the launch of a lifesaving treatment, past the data centre and muse upon the millions of connected people.. Design to Value explores just that.. Much design practice has reacted to complexity through specialisation to make it feel more ‘manageable’ – fracturing the building process by elevating expertise.
Today, rarely does an architect oversee the entire building process, from analysis to aesthetics, engineering to construction.Yet architects have a unique capacity to critically understand and engage with the myriad stakeholders involved in a design process – and those who will ultimately use building and be affected by its presence.By fracturing the design process, traditional approaches to design and construction make room for ballooned budgets (being over budget is a built-in assumption at this point), rushed decision making, sacrificed ethics and injurious miscommunication and lack of trust.
Design to Value embraces complexity, acknowledging the complementary nature of ‘value drivers’: the financial, aesthetic, socio-environmental and processual.Rather than breaking down the design process into discrete, rigid steps, Design to Value seeks nuance and the space for innovation in the layers of each project.
Keeping a project and all its elements together is, however, complex – but not complicated.
The complexities, interactions and patterns reveal the essence of every project – they tell the stories of where value actually lies.We shall never surrender, until, the world, with all its beauty and majesty becomes our sustainable home..
Professor John Dyson spent more than 25 years at GlaxoSmithKline, eventually ending his career as VP, Head of Capital Strategy and Design, where he focussed on developing a long-term strategic approach to asset management..While there, he engaged Bryden Wood and together they developed the Front End Factory, a collaborative endeavour to explore how to turn purpose and strategy into the right projects – which paved the way for Design to Value.
He is committed to the betterment of lives through individual and collective endeavours.. As well as his business and pharmaceutical experience, Dyson is Professor of Human Enterprise at the University of Birmingham, focussing on project management, business strategy and collaboration.. Additionally, he is a qualified counsellor with a private practice and looks to bring the understanding of human behaviour into business and projects.. To learn more about our Design to Value philosophy, read Design to Value: The architecture of holistic design and creative technology by Professor John Dyson, Mark Bryden, Jaimie Johnston MBE and Martin Wood.Available to purchase at.As a commentator remarked, the coronation service of King Charles III brought into sharp relief some of the idiosyncrasies and incongruities of the British.
(Editor: Cordless Smart Plugs)