One of these aspects relates to the an ever-shifting flow of different occupants in office spaces: employees, temporary occupants, partners, customers, suppliers, clients, etc. Over the last few decades, it has become obvious that, in order to stay competitive and increase productivity, companies need to embrace the idea that physical spaces have to adapt to the concept of fluidity. This flexibility has already become a staple in the organization of many forward-thinking enterprises which created workplaces that facilitate a way of operating in which team sizes and way of collaborating vary from project to project, and depend on specific tasks and project stage.

Data collection to analyze the use of office spaces

Deloitte’s new HQ in Amsterdam, named The Edge, epitomizes this smart utilization of new tech which affects office design in terms of organization and energy efficiency. Designed by PLP Architecture, the building is described as the world’s greenest, most intelligent building. The project, which promotes a new way of smart-enabled agile working, has also received the highest sustainability score ever awarded by the British rating agency BREEAM. It provides 1,000 desks for 2,500 Deloitte workers who interact with it – for anything from parking to desk allocation, instant locker access and food ordering – through a dedicated app which connects with 30,000 sensors embedded in the building’s LED lighting system.

As a result, Deloitte’s talent attraction and retention has rocketed, with a four-fold increase in job applications and 60% fewer absentees. Data collection allowed company to analyze the use of their office spaces and helped push forward the concept of hot desking–using desks only when they’re needed. This greatly increases occupancy efficiency and boosts productivity. Meeting rooms may be moved, merged, or eliminated entirely, providing a more efficient use of any available office space.

It is only a matter of time before the new standard for meeting and presentations is immediate interaction. Presenters will be able to send information directly to participants’ personal devices or collaborative interactive displays such as smart whiteboards. Telepresence is already here and will be further advanced through the proliferation of virtual reality. VR allows companies to hold interactive presentations and get fast and accurate feedback on their products and concepts. Attendees can “travel” to remote locations with their colleagues or customers, with motion controllers and positional tracking of the headsets bringing hands and body movement into long-distance meetings, making communication more natural and effective. The increasing use of VR in meetings reduces the need for physical meeting and conference rooms.

It is only a matter of time before the new standard for meeting and presentations is immediate interaction. Presenters will be able to send information directly to participants’ personal devices or collaborative interactive displays such as smart whiteboards. Telepresence is already here and will be further advanced through the proliferation of virtual reality. VR allows companies to hold interactive presentations and get fast and accurate feedback on their products and concepts. Attendees can “travel” to remote locations with their colleagues or customers, with motion controllers and positional tracking of the headsets bringing hands and body movement into long-distance meetings, making communication more natural and effective. The increasing use of VR in meetings reduces the need for physical meeting and conference rooms.

Sharing information and knowledge

Another important aspect of the use of IoT in office design is its contribution to sharing information and knowledge. The future of modern workplaces lies in seamless collaboration across departments and continents. Studios, incubators, pop-ups are just a few new workplace types that evolved with the emergence of digital technology. These new spaces reflect the fast-paced economy that is pushing out the old concept of hierarchical structure manifested through space. The anachronistic model of centralized decision-making is being replaced with a more transparent setup that reinforces different cultural values and caters to a whole new generation of young professionals that put great value on well-being and at-work comfort.

Large companies build their office buildings equipped with smart sensors and heating systems that can regulate micro-environments to suit individual employees makes the occupants of the building more comfortable, and they can do their work more productively. This ability of the workplace to boost user satisfaction is particularly important with millennials. Tech giants like Facebook and Google are leading examples of companies that embraced campus-style workspace aimed for young talents.

In designing Apple’s new spaceship-shaped campus in Cupertino, California, Foster+Partners included a 100,000-square-foot fitness center, 300,000 square feet of research and development facilities, and two miles of walkways and running paths for employees at Apple’s new spaceship-shaped campus in Cupertino, California. They also included an underground parking, as well as an orchard, meadow and pond. The staff can also navigate the campus on bikes, electric golf carts and commuter shuttles. The use of environmental sensors tracking the interior temperature, humidity, air quality, barometric pressure, ambient light levels and occupancy turns a building into an intelligent ecosystem that is both cost-efficient and increases productivity.

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Intelligent office design is already embraced as cutting-edge innovation and a smart business investment that improves workplace dynamics. How do you see your workplace evolving in the future?

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WHAT IS ARCHITECTURAL THINKING?
“Architectural thinking focuses on what ought to be, and less on what is possible or market proven. It embraces complexity, challenges the existing state and works prospectively on an alternative desired one, against contradictions. With a prototype-mindset it constantly moves between problem and solution space while analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating an ­approach. The architects’ ability for synthesis relates to the real world, it seeks for application as a new whole. Architects are used to think at different scales from abstract masterplans to concrete details in 1:1. They reflect-in-action visually with sketches, diagrams, drawings and models – whether for a building to develop, a system or an organization. Thinking of relations in space and time, architects have to imagine and consider the implications and consequences when a design is going to be built – a truly holistic approach with a long-term perspective.”

Christos Chantzaras

As technology accelerates into every professional industry, it’s crucial for architectural education to pro­gress from teaching only a traditional building design process. At Technical University of Munich (TUM), a new research department is focusing on the interdisciplinary development and research competencies in ­architecture. We talked to Dr. Gerhard Schubert and Christos Chantzaras, two of the initiators of the Architectu­ral Research Incubator (ARI) about their idea, mission and the future goals of their new platform approach.

Research and Collaboration in Architecture

The Architectural Research Incubator (ARI) was created with the aim of strengthening research competencies in architectural education. “Traditionally, architectural education is focusing on the building design process rather than research. Students are mostly confronted with this topic, but there are also students who will actually not build an opera house or want to become a starchitect” says Gerhard Schubert, Director of ARI. In addition to teaching the traditional curriculum, Schubert and Chantzaras believe it is fundamental to pursue experimental research and interdisciplinary exchange to open up opportunities for architecture to interface with other industries.

When establishing the ARI, the first step was to encourage collaboration among the existing faculty. Within the university, research-focused departments collaborated with design-focused departments to form a network. The goal of this network is to think broadly about new ­opportunities for multidisciplinary research with architecture and urban design.

“We want to promote research in ­architecture and connect architecture students with other disciplines, to engage with topics that are not ready for market yet, but which are at the ­interface between university and industry. We want to create new solutions through architectural thinking”, says Christos Chantzaras. With a background in architecture and ­management, Chantzaras operates the ARI in connection with his doctoral research on the impact of architectural thinking for designing companies at a strategic level.

The ARI’s approach to creating a collaborative, multidisciplinary architectural research program has two phases. The first objective is to empower the researcher as an individual and research-driven teaching at the faculty level of architectural education. The second aim is to encourage a stronger connection across disciplines in order to produce new innovative solutions through design research. “The topics our students are investigating are not monofunctional, but holistic. They are exploring questions beyond the building design process, like ‘what does work mean today? And, what is sustainability?’. These topics are also explored with the help of technology through simulations, software and architectural informatics”, explains Gerhard Schubert.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Prototyping

Forming interdisciplinary teams of students is an important aspect. To ensure these ­partnerships are made, for example between ­architecture and computer science students, requirements for internships are ­formulated. The research groups, also called labs, gain practical experience by working on a complex task from real-life environments. The groups created through ARI since 2017 have produced several prototype solutions stemming from ­research-focused collaboration:

Urban Micro Climate Canopy

Urban Micro Climate Canopy is an innovative plant-technical composite structure that opens up new possibilities for improving the microclimate in our cities. The robotically manufactured lightweight construction contains climbing plants and mosses. This project was developed by a team of architects, landscape architects and engineers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and it is the first experimental structure of a research cooperation between the Chair of Green Technologies in Landscape Architecture (TUM), the Chair of Building Technology and Climate-Friendly Building (TUM) and FibR GmbH from Stuttgart.

Repetitive Structures

Repetitive Structures is an ongoing research project at the Chair of Structural Design (TUM). aiming to simplify the construction of doubly curved support structures. The interdisciplinary team of architects, mathematicians and engineers is investigating the curvature behavior of surfaces and networks with the goal to design and construct gridshells with repetitive geometric parameters.

Through physical and computational experiments, the team demonstrates new possibilities for an intelligent symbiosis of form, structure and fabrication. One key strategy is the elastic bending of initially flat elements into a curved geometry in order to achieve a double curved shape and thus a highly efficient load-bearing behavior.

The INSIDE\OUT pavilion is the first ­architectural prototype of this research. It utilizes so-called asymptotic curves on a minimal surface, which allows for a homogenous network with repetitive nodes and straight developable strips.

While the design process relies heavily on computational tools to optimize the surface geometry and find the network curves, the construction itself becomes very simple. The flat and straight lamellas are slotted together by hand and can be deformed into their design shape without formwork. All joints are identical and rectangular allow the use of standardized parts.

The 90m² large pavilion is located at the central campus of the Technical University of Munich. It was constructed from steel lamellas with a thickness of only 1.5mm. The pavilion spans up to 9 m with a surface weight of only 18 kg/m². It is a symbol for new technologies and lightweight construction and is used as a venue for the 150th anniversary of the TUM.

CDP // Energy 3

Preliminary decisions in the early stages of an urban design project can have a significant influence on the thermal and energetic performance of proposed buildings on a site. However, the impacts of factors such as Solar Potential, District Heating Networks and Wind, e.g. are often not adequately considered in the early stages of planning, particularly at an urban development level.

The Collaborative Design Platform (CDP) is an urban development-oriented computer platform designed by the Chair of Architectural Informatics (Prof. Dr.-Ing. Frank Petzold) . Through cooperation with the Chair of Building Technology and Climate-Friendly Construction (Prof. Thomas Auer), the CDP has been expanded to enhance the urban planning, energetic and spatial optimization of projects in the early planning phase. This research approach combines the evaluation of exterior spatial quality, interior quality and energy efficiency at an urban development level, by seamlessly integrating this data into a creative computer-assisted interdisciplinary design and planning process.

The CDP research group is led by Dr. Schubert, an experienced researcher at the intersection of computer science and architecture. Schubert’s research focus is on Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and interactive design tools for urban architectural design, including the creation of an interactive planning tool as a table device which supports architects in the urban design process.

Architectural thinking and its potential for the future

Now that several ARI research groups have been formed and have launched prototype solutions for various academic research ­projects, the next step is to introduce the ARI to industries across creative, consulting, real estate, manufacturing and automotive fields, and explore a further direction: how can architectural research and reasoning help companies find creative solutions to complex tasks within their organizations. This will challenge the traditional practice model for architects and test new ways of applying architectural thinking to other disciplines.

Schubert and Chantzaras believe “the core asset of architects is the ability to solve complex problems with their skillset.” One aspect of the architectural skillset involves ­design thinking, a term recently marketed and popularized by the industrial design sector. The iterative part of the industrial design thinking process aims to produce better product solutions for market fit by integrating the client or customer’s feedback and learning from it. The ARI is working out the differences between ­architectural and industrial design thinking, and how architectural thinking is better positioned to help companies seeking for better solutions.

Legendary British architect Denys Lasdun (1965) explained the theoretical nature of architectural thinking: “Our job is to give the client … not what he wants, but what he never dreamed he wanted; and when he gets it, he recognizes it as something he wanted all the time.”4 In this way, architectural thinking goes beyond the commonly understood notion of design thinking by imagining and anticipating the wants and needs of the client before their feedback is even available.

Design thinking, which is driven and reiterated according to customer feedback, can be considered a capitalistic approach. Since true innovation is not always determined by consumers and market preferences, architectural thinking has the power to find solutions beyond building design, an approach which could be valuable for large companies too. Interfaced with technology, this can be a powerful tool to create change in organizations. The ARI is now partnering with several industry leaders as from automotive in which researchers are carrying out their doctoral project with a specific use-case application or implementation.

The ARI is also testing new collaborative workshop formats as a creative business game called ‘Start-Up Architecture’. In this two-day workshop, students from architecture, design, management and informatics work together with consulting firms and medium or large sized architectural practices to tackle big questions: Can architects transform their potentials into new competitive advantages in the future? What processes need to be changed? What will architectural offices look like in the future and how will they integrate new technologies? How will the built environment industry be disrupted by augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI)?

“Consultants are jumping into the construction industry and intersecting fields right now, but this seems to pass by the architects”, Christos Chantzaras says. The ARI´s mission is to actively drive change by connecting research and education in architecture with creative industries and businesses – a challenging, but necessary process to engage architects in complex business realities of the future and raise the awareness for the potentials of architectural thinking.

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Over recent decades the built environ­ment and architecture industries have maintained an inward-looking attitude, keeping themselves outside of relevant conversations with other and overlooking opportunities and new territories to conquer. The future of the built environment will require leaders with an expanded and renewed vision of the field: leaders with the sharpness and skills to identify real-world problems coming from a wider range of sources, who are able to transform them into innovative and impactful business opportunities that connect better with society and add more value to it.

The omnipresence of technology, but also factors like demographic pressure, mass urbanization or environmental threats are transforming how we plan, understand and interact with space: how we live. Dealing this ­conundrum requires evolving faster than our context. Built environment professionals represent a rare and talented group, composed of great system-thinkers, minds that blend ­creativity with analytical capacity, and exceptional strategists. Leveraging this talent through a much wider perspective does not mean forgetting the role we have performed traditionally, but it does require questioning the status-quo constantly: like a growing tree, the higher and wider we aim for, the deeper our roots must dig down. Keeping in mind the following simple ideas can play a relevant role in guiding us through this exciting work.

Management: The balance for design innovation

The greatest creative processes are often divergent and unstructured. However, the companies that make them possible, and the world that they aim to impact require a deep understanding of management, strategy, business communication and development, among other fields. Giving importance to these matters in the built environment realm connects design professionals to fundamental tools for better channelling the potential of their work, understanding and implementing positive working dynamics in the field. Nowadays, fundamental design innovation can only take place as a result of simultaneous approaches from both ends: design itself, and the principles and opportunities of a business-aware attitude.

Spatial design is a polivalent skill

Even today, the terms architecture, design and planning are associated with the production of principally tangible “brick and mortar” spaces. We are failing in our mission to communicate the power of the complex problem solving skills implied in spatial design, which are directly applicable to many contemporary and complementary fields. Technology is opening some of the many opportunities, from data applied to the city, to the system-thinking that is required in platforms and other digital business models, or the need for convincing solutions that blend spaces, services, data, clients and experiences: a mix that will define many markets and companies in the coming years. Companies such as UNStudio, with it’s spinoff UNSense, are leveraging their capacities with well-identified opportunities midway between technology, sensorial experience, and physical space. If we expect to create and respond to new opportunities, we must first understand that we are the right professionals for it, and why. With this perspective in mind, our approach to design and our work become wider, which is an important step to better connect with society.

Impact vs authorship

Evolving faster than our context, leading in ­today’s environment of change, requires a shift from an authorship-based model to an impact-oriented one. Putting impact at the top of the scale of values in our organizations drives us toward a more solid and transdisciplinary collaboration, an enhanced workers’ ownership over what they do, a more efficient use of resources and more responsive structures capable of growing and adapting to innovation and facing complex challenges. This ends up empowering more creativity: teams ­generally push back prejudices or boundaries much more than individuals, which again, brings work closer to society, which is diverse above all. In this approach, authorship and creation essentially belong to teams and are valuable to the extent that they empower organizations with a more significant role.

Wider communication and partnering

The impact-oriented approach also allows greater freedom to conceive what it means to create value and how it can be delivered. We should expect more than passively receiving previously delimited silos or problems to work on (i.e. buildings to be built in a plot), or to remain limited to collaborations with a set of disciplines in established ways (i.e. classic consultants). This is a valuable part of our work, but we should also aim to orchestrate wider and more diverse systems, opportunities and actions. Companies like Design Intelligence, Shop Architects and UNSense are working along these lines with different teams and approaches ranging from business research to real estate or technology development. This more ambitious positioning pushes organizations to “speak new languages” and communicate better at the peer-to-peer, professional and public levels. We must devote attention to communicating ideas to audiences that conceive and solve problems in very different ways to us. We should collaborate closer with them. The challenge resides not only in translating our thoughts, but also in learning to think like they do to some extent, and to incorporate them into the daily work of our organizations.

Entrepreneurial mindset

Considering the exponential transformation of the built-environment industry, there are multiple opportunities ahead. The entrepreneurial mindset is partly an attitude of constant search for those opportunities in our daily work, combined with the mastery of a series of principles of business and management that make us more effective. Creating value depends on identifying industry problems and solving them. We must define both qualitatively and quantitatively what is the value we are delivering if we solve a certain problem, and how we can create companies around this, by capturing a portion of that value. Great companies in all industries are founded on the basis of a well-framed problem and a brilliant execution of the solution. IKEA for instance, identified a number of issues related to the traditional experience of buying domestic furniture, like the difficulty of transporting already-assembled pieces, or the lack of a single place where customers could find everything they might need. Brilliant execution came through attractive designs at affordable prices packed in flat boxes that fit within regular cars: the rest is a longer story, but the principle of problem and opportunity framing is the same across different industries, and we are no exception.

Iterative innovation

Since the entrepreneurial mindset implies setting out into the unknown to some extent, contemporary entrepreneurship has adopted lean approaches to increase efficiency and improve value creation and market fit while pursuing business opportunities (Expanded understanding of design example: read our interview with Flissade as one great example). This consists of testing value propositions through incrementally complex product or service iterations, and it allows numerous trial and error processes in which refinements are incorporated every time. This experimental way of working, which is part of the “learning by doing” philosophy, is also part of the DNA of designers. We need only to better understand the methodologies involved to use it with a less inward looking perspective, and a more business and client-oriented one. Training professionals and incorporating these methods in our organizations is fundamental to raise the speed of innovation in our industries.

Scalability and problem framing

One of the most exciting possibilities of entrepreneurship is finding a problem that affects many people in one industry. Creating a solution that is easily applicable to all consumers, regardless of their subtle differences, is an important part of scalable businesses. This requires a systemic approach: the innovator needs to understand how the specific problem affects one specific user that s/he might be interacting with, as well as the shared core of the problem for the most representative type of user— this can be the base of a company’s value-proposition. The extended consultancy model in architecture and design companies for so long –in which the value corresponds to a capacity that is measured by the sum of individual solutions to specific problems—could be complemented by this approach in two ways. Firstly, to communicate better: companies can reflect about the connection and the shared value between their individiual solutions to problems –projects—and deliver a more solid message about what is their essential value proposition. Secondly and more importantly, it can help them to enter territories in which case-by-case action is not applicable. These precisely tend to be situations that impact the field more systematically, and are one of the key territories to understand if we want to remain relevant, control our own industry and again, innovate faster. Recent initiatives like Architizer Source of Material Bank represent well this systemic approach, to tackle the problems of material sourcing and sample distribution efficiency.

Developing leadership and talent

As the complexity of our contexts and organizations increases, the more important it becomes to excel at finding and managing the right talent. Under a vision in which partnering for impact is fundamental, we must strive to map and define what capacities and attitudes are most needed to transform the built environment and how they can complement each other, besides the traditional and most extended profiles. This is part of the task of understanding what built-environment professionals are required to be. As leaders of our organizations, we must design structures that empower a sense of ownership, initiative, flexibility and collaboration. From the education side, we should work to enhance multicultural and interdisciplinary collaboration, but also pursue holistic leadership by devoting time to professional self-awareness and strategic vision, which are key to establishing open organizations with clear goals where people can excel.

A global perspective

Returning to where we started, training leaders with an expanded understanding of design away from idealistic approaches requires adopting a global perspective when framing and implementing business and design ideas. Impact at the local level also depends on this exercise, which can throw light onto opportunities that professionals centered on their immediate environments often neglect. Bringing in diverse voices and working alongside institutions from architect associations to global economic players such as development banks or leaders in technology and data is fundamental to acquire this realistic global vision. For instance, the latest Survey of the Architectural Profession of the Commonwealth Architect’s Association presents concerning facts about the substantial gap between the presence of architects and the need for their expertise in many regions of the world. This situation that is not only an opportunity if we think strategically, but more importantly raises flags about the potential consequences of the lack of planning in mass urbanization in these regions.

The ideas introduced here are deeply interconnected, as well as with other many facets of design and management that are not the focus of this article. The questions that they raise are part of a natural redefinition of our field. Despite being solidly rooted in other industries, built environment designers have left them aside for too long. Leading this process of redefinition is an exciting commitment, and I can’t think of a more privileged position for these times of change and opportunity than the one of educators.

About

Jerónimo van Schendel

Jerónimo van Schendel is a Spanish-Colombian Architect, graduated from ETSAM in 2011 and Master in Architecture (M.Arch II) with Distinction, from Harvard University Graduate School of Design since 2016. He has worked with some of the most renowned architects in Spain, such as Cruz y Ortiz, Rafael Moneo or AS+, and is an IDEO SF CoLab Fellow 2016 (Iot & Blockchain Innovation Lab). Jerónimo currently serves as Office Manager at Abalos+Sentkiewicz AS+, with several projects in Spain, China and Latin América. His independent work is focused on identifying scalable entrepreneurship opportunities in the intersection of design, AEC, and technology, mainly through platform business models.

Expanded understanding of design examples from Archipreneur:

Minimal, Modular & Mobile: Cabin One is a New Way of Flexible Living – Cabin.one

Architectural Sketching: Teaching a Skill and Building a Business with David Drazil

Transforming Practice: Chris Precht Represents a New Generation of Design Entrepreneurs

Automating Construction: Improving On-Site Logistics through Robotics and Data Analytics

Sensors for Cities: Ben van Berkel Explores Technology-Integrated Urban Design

Bimarium Objects: A New 3D BIM Platform That Helps Architects Create Better, Smarter Designs

How Morpholio Apps Revolutionizes the Creative Design Workflow

The post Thinking Ahead: Towards an Expanded Understanding of Design appeared first on Archipreneur.

For the last decade, technology start-ups have sought to revolutionize nearly every working sector. Ambitious, growing tech companies are racing to find opportunities for what they call ‘disruption’ of the remaining traditional industries, from agriculture to medicine. It comes as no surprise that the building industry is ripe for disruption.

For the most part it has been practiced in the same way for centuries, and as a result it is renowned for being slow to adopt to new technologies. However, as public attention builds on the future of our built environment and its integration with new tech, architects have a responsibility to innovate. In the midst of this Digital Revolution, how can architects incorporate new ideas from the tech sector to better design progressive buildings and smarter, more sustainable cities?

Let’s first take a look at the guardians of design processes within the tech world. The user experience (UX) designer controls the design processes of products, apps and websites. There are several stories of professionals with architectural backgrounds transitioning to the field of UX design and working for startups to design their digital products and websites. This suggests that architectural thinking is transferrable and that there may be parallels within the design processes of both fields.

What are the similarities between user experience design and architectural design? Perhaps the best example can be found in the cross-­appropriation of architectural and ­technological language in recent years. More and more often architects incorporate tech buzzwords like dynamic, hub, agile, incubator and scalable to communicate their intentions for contemporary design.

For years, the rapidly growing tech industry has created expressions and digital specializations like digital infrastructure, software architecture or architecture frameworks, perhaps to make computer engineering skills feel more concrete, relatable and connected to traditional industry practices. CO-Office, an emerging architecture firm based in New York City brands itself as “UX Designers for Space”.

In Amsterdam, esteemed architect Ben van Berkel of UNStudio launched a new company called UNSense, an ArchTech ­company which explores sensorial technologies for cities. KPF from New York City has launched a division called UI (Urban Interface for Cities), which uses urban data analytics for informed decision making in the design of buildings and cities.

It is interesting to see architecture companies using an interdisciplinary approach to explore these new fields and that they are also expanding their business models to incorporate new practice. To better understand the potential for architectural and UX design industry growth in this context, let’s take a closer look at UX ­design processes today.

What is User Experience Design?

The term user experience mainly refers to designing apps or websites, but it can also be applied to the use of physical products. A UX designer is concerned with the full scope of user interaction with a product, not only ­acquiring and integrating a product but also aspects of branding, design, usability and functionality. For this reason, UX is a major ­component of a device long before it is in a ­user’s hands.

Roman engineer Vitruvius is widely considered the first architect and designer, and many believe that he defined the criteria for user experience with the terms firmitas (strength), utilitas (utility) and venustas (beauty), which he applied to his architectural designs. While these tenets were only intended for the design of buildings at the time, today, as designers apply these criteria to designing various products, his core principles take on different meanings.

For Vitruvius, strength referred to stability and structural integrity, evident for example in a house that did not collapse. For UX, this term can be likened to the reliability and security of a digital product, ensuring that it does not crash and cannot be compromised. Regarding utility, or functionality, in architecture the debate of form vs. function has lasted for centuries.

Many agree with the Modernist Louis Sullivan that “form follows function“ and ultimately the success of a building or product relies on its usefulness more than its appearance. Utility incorporates accessibility, another principle which is shared between architecture and UX design. Both buildings and products should be inclusive and accessible for maximum public benefit and utility.

In addition to strength and utility, user experience is also influenced by beauty and emotional drivers. The importance of beauty and aesthetics varies from product to product. The beauty of a spreadsheet, for example, is usually considered secondary to its utility for organizing and conveying information. However, in fashion design, aesthetics and appearance are commonly foregrounded.

We can understand how the architectural tenets of Vitruvius are used in the tech sector, but what are the foundational design principles for UX design, and how can architects adopt these practices to improve the process of designing buildings?

UX Design vs. Architectural Design: A similar process?

Research and organization of information/space

The traditional architectural method of designing a building begins with research and information about the urban context, the spatial demands of the client, and the development of the building’s concept. A first step is often to structure the spatial demands of and relationships between different elements by working out a program. If we were to use a concert hall as an example, this would mean defining the size of the required spaces and the spatial relationships (i.e., the entrance area in relation to the concert hall, the backstage areas and the stage itself, the service areas, cafes, shops, and so on).

Architects would consider how visitors might enter the building, how the entrance should look, and how foot traffic should flow through the various sections of the hall. The programmatic setup of the building would therefore interact with and correspond to the urban design and the building’s form and position within the context of its location.

The starting point for UX Designers is similar: they ask why, how and what the product should be for its user. The design process for a digital product would start with a research phase to collect data, to understand the client’s fundamental requirements, to carry out user interviews and to establish the business targets and criteria for the product itself. Both the architect and UX designer therefore conduct research, gather data and try to understand the demands of their stakeholders to inform the design process.

Sketching and wireframing

Designing an app or website usually starts with wireframing the overall design concept. A UX designer places basic layout blocks to outline the product flow without going into detail on colors, fonts, or headlines. In architecture, the design process typically starts with initial sketches, placing the required spaces into floorplan arrangements and designing the overall layout of the spatial zones within the boundaries of the urban context.

The finer details of the building, such as the material of the facade and minor design elements are generally resolved later. While the output of the initial design phase for the UX designer is a wireframe layout; the initial output of the architect is likely a ground floor plan or an urban site plan.

Prototyping vs. model building

The design process of creating an app, product or website leads to a prototype; a minimum viable product (MVP) that can be used and tested. In architecture this prototype is the architectural model (physical or digital) which can be placed into the urban context in order to review the building’s design and its relation to neighboring buildings. The architect would design a physical model to different scales in order to check interior configurations and assess how light flows into the building or urban site. This could be further reviewed with a virtual 3D model or VR solution. In this way, architects apply the same methods of UX design for the physical world.

Iteration: An agile process as key difference

Both the UX and architectural design processes will eventually lead to a model prototype or MVP. However, the design process is only the first element of the project cycle; comparing the processes of constructing (or building, executing and realizing the concept) is quite different. After the design stage, an architectural project will progress to permitting, schematic design, construction drawings and finally construction.

This process, when drawn along a time axis, becomes less and less flexible. Many stakeholders can enter the design process at a single point and provide conflicting feedback on the developing strategy, bringing the pro­ject to a standstill. Once the design has been signed off by its stakeholders, the detailing phase for construction drawings can begin. At this stage, the design does not fundamentally change because other project parties including the MEP and structural engineers must integrate their work into the planning cycle.

In the digital world we find a more agile approach to a project, where the design phase is followed by a testing and iteration phase. The product or service is first tested so that user feedback can be collected. The product can then be improved and adapted based on the gathered user data, to improve product quality and ensure a better market fit.

One could argue that collecting user data is much more easily achieved in the digital world because data can be gathered in simpler way. Buildings are static prototypes and after they are finished they are, in effect, left alone with the user. The maintenance phase is not generally used for major building improvements. If you relate the iteration process of UX Design to the built environment it could mean that a building would be changed, adapted or improved based on the experiences of the building’s users after the building is finished.

This would rely on collecting user feedback within the asset management cycle and sharing the outcomes with the architect responsible for making design improvements. Altering a building after tenants have moved in is a challenging undertaking, but the data could also be used to inform and improve the next generation buildings of the same building type. Unfortunately, the asset management phase and the architect are usually not connected and rarely exchange ideas for design improvement unless there is a significant fault or failure.

In the Digital Revolution the physical and virtual worlds evolve together, cities adapt more quickly and tools are developed that can be applied to architectural design. Virtual and augmented reality solutions have become a common starting point for thinking about ­iterative processes that can be integrated into architectural design processes. Data gathering in cities might also improve the process of designing and constructing architecture with real-time iteration feedback from the user, i.e., pedestrian flow, Wi-Fi connection date, and traffic data.

How Can Architecture Learn from UX Design?

Approaching architectural design with an UX designer’s mindset would begin with a stronger focus on the end user. Gaining a better understanding of the end user from the outset would encourage a more holistic approach to designing the experience of using the building. A building is greater than the sum of its parts, more than a collection of bricks and mortar. Buildings often comprise an ecosystem or community of people who are using it.

Consider WeWork as an example, where members use the organization’s physical space as a service – a meeting point, office, co-working hub – but they also connect and relate in a digital way though WeWork’s digital network to the built environment.

The architect of a new building could start to think about how a user might experience it in the digital world, or how the user could be connected to it via an app or marketing material. The digitalization and interweaving of digital and physical spaces could also lead to new business opportunities. There is opportunity for architects to expand their service portfolio by offering design services, which the client could use for marketing the project during the leasing phase.

The technology exists for building facades to react to the local environment by collecting and displaying data which, in turn, could help inform other developing projects. But will these opportunities in technological innovation for buildings be developed by architects, or will tech-entrepreneurs take over in the future?

Buildings are unique prototypes in that they typically last for several decades, while a digital product has a far shorter lifespan. That said, as a network of spaces in the city for user consumption, buildings can become helpful technological tools for architects when designing solutions for the smart cities of our future.

As the role of the architect continues to evolve, the digital design sector will generate new opportunities for architectural thinkers, and as architects we should be ready to embrace these prospects for growth in our industry. —

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We first introduced The Starter Home* by the Office of Jonathan Tate to you in the article “Tall, Green, and Global: 10 of the Most Innovative Architecture Projects of 2016” and want to take a closer look at the building and the housing program of which it is the first example.

Starter Home* is an opportunistic urban housing program created to develop affordable living, entry-level homes for the speculative market that prioritizes: contemporary design that is site based and not prototypical; programmatic diversity to address a range of buyers, from first-timers to downsizers; densification through infill of overlooked odd or irregular vacant land; right-sizing as a means of addressing both environmental concerns and to insure affordability; in increasingly gentrifying historic core neighborhoods, a product that enables household economic diversity in rapidly gentrifying historic urban cores; and to do this without subsidization.

The Starter Home* program is fundamentally about using inventive land strategies coupled with design to develop homeownership opportunities in urban neighborhoods that, due to upward economic pressures, are no longer assessable to large parts of the population. The starter home moniker is important in that it clearly associates the program with a quintessential, albeit fading, component of the American housing market. Conventionally understood as monotonous, mass produced, greenfield development, this program takes a decidedly opposite approach of architectural particularity and urban integration to achieve similar aims. And, unlike its namesake, it relies wholly on design to set the development agenda, create access to land and generate the product. Without architecture, in this context, there would be no development.

The program is financed and operated by a working collaboration between developer, builder and architect. It is conceived as being applicable to many, if not all, cities. The first test sites are in New Orleans. Through a thorough analysis of land availability and market pressures, it was determined that there were opportunities with land that was too small or undesirable — odd lots — to attract first-wave developers. The design of the home works within and expressive of the restrictive conditions of the site, resulting in fitting yet peculiar new housing types for the City.

The first completed home under this program, No. 1, is located at 3106 St. Thomas St. in the Irish Channel neighborhood of New Orleans. The site was situated between industrial warehouses and historic homes dating back to the beginnings of the neighborhood — a common condition in the fringes adjacent the River. The site is a remnant parcel long thought to be the rear yard of an adjacent home and measured only 16 ½ by 55 feet. With as-of-right setbacks, the footprint was limited to 10 ½ by 45 feet. The site was further complicated by being in a full control historic district with strict guidelines for scale and massing. The program for this initial house, one bedroom, one and a half baths with an office space, was tailored towards an individual or couple that, as a category, have found it increasingly difficult to locate available housing in this neighborhood.

The formal solution for the 975 square foot home was to use a staggered sectional composition that allowed the rooms to layer farther from the street giving an impression of a much smaller home. As a way to economize space, the side yard setback was used for entry and rear yard circulation, by way of an elevated deck, which was sandwiched between the home and adjacent warehouse CMU wall. The result is a narrow and tall structure that, through manipulation of the roof plane, is disguised from the street, read essentially as a low, one-story roof line, while the remainder of the home climbed up to the allowable building height.

Future Starter Homes* will continue to explore land-use, programmatic and spatial variations that position them as alternatives to the regimens of the normative speculative housing marketplace and we at Archipreneur are looking forward to the results!

Location:

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Project Data:

• Architect: OJT (Office of Jonathan Tate)
• Research and Design Team: Robert Baddour, Travis Bost, Rebecca X. Fitzgerald, Sabeen Hasan, Lauren Hickman, Kristian Mizes, Charles Rutledge and Jonathan Tate
• Structural engineer: John C. Bose Consulting Engineers
• Development Partner: Charles Rutledge
• Planning/Construction: 2015
• Residential units: 1
• Storeys: 3
• Floor area: 44 sqm (472 SF)
• Living space: 90.5 sqm (975 SF)

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