'Innovation' and 'design thinking' could possibly be two of the most extensively-used phrases both online and offline during the past decade. To respond to the global need of "changing the status quo", established companies, start-ups, and even universities have used this framework to generate novel ways of solving problems and create new products, taking into account their desirability, feasibility, and viability. And with that, a new archetype was conceived: the design thinker, someone who has the creative toolkit to generate something disruptive. So what is the meaning behind design thinking and what is its relationship with architecture?
What is Design Thinking?
Although the term gained massive popularity in recent years, one of the first times “design thinking” was mentioned was in John E. Arnold’s Creative Engineering book, published in 1959. Arnold, a mechanical engineering professor at Stanford known for being a pioneer of involving creative thinking in his practice, explained that this particular approach has the ability to resolve existent problems or propose an entirely new way of using a product, decrease production costs, and increase sales. Other academics originate design thinking to the 1960’s, when university professors attempted to “scienticize” design by understanding its characteristics, influences, processes, and methodologies. Decades later, the terminology found its way across various disciplines, using creativity as a means of addressing the accelerating need for innovation, especially after companies found themselves unable to develop new, never-done-before products and services that meet the needs of their customers and keep up with their competitors.
Design thinking is a human-centered problem solving approach which utilizes the way consumers interact with a product as a basis to further develop it, instead of only relying on theoretical research, assumptions, and hypotheses. Contrary to what the name may signify, this does not necessarily mean that design thinking is exclusively applicable in design industries such as product or industrial design, but it can also be applied in all business models, regardless of their genre or market. Why 'design' though? Designers have long been valued as creative "out-of-the-box" thinkers and producers who were taught during their academia and early years of practice the methods and tools to produce new disruptive materials.
Answering to modern changes in trends and consumer values, creatives analyze the user experience through a hands-on approach that prioritizes consumer needs. One of the characteristics of design thinking is to develop an empathetic understanding with the end user, enabling them to form a sustainable connection with the product. Since the process puts aside analytical thinking and favors this exploration of the product and user's relationship, it encompasses different modes or phases that consist of context analysis, observation, problem finding, brainstorming, ideation, creative thinking, sketching, prototyping, testing, and evaluating (the phases are not always sequential). And since innovation is an endless process, design thinking is endless as well, so the series is repeated with every desired update.
Where do architects stand in the design thinking process?
Beyond designing buildings, most architecture schools dedicate at least the first semester of their program towards training students on how to use liberal thinking strategies. During this period, students learn about the creative process of design, with an emphasis on individualistic expression, experimentation, and critical analysis, along with the basics of the technical and theoretical aspects of the profession. This foundation has enabled architects to look beyond the built environment as a basic functional space, and see it as a physical response to the urban, communal, and environmental needs. In other words, architects think the same way graphic, product, and interface designers do, they just implement on different mediums.
As mentioned above, businesses, products, and services today are all about innovation, and to innovate, one must have the capability to design or to integrate design within an organization to promote an environment that fosters creativity. This approach persuaded many architects who found the architectural practice to be very systematic or stagnant to shift towards fields like UX design, design consultants, product and business innovation specialists, and research and development operations, putting the way they think into practice. Architects have also combined both worlds by relying on their design thinking strategies to develop new systems for cities, buildings, and communities that are designed to answer to the needs of users instead of relying on standardized planning.
However, the presence of architects in discussions of design thinking remains very minimal. Many credit this absence to the reputation of being too orderly or niche, while others to "the growing complexity of architectural practice", since buildings contribute to a much larger socio-cultural ecosystem, and architects find it challenging to explain their intuitive design processes to clients. On the other hand, architects could make use of the design thinking module to change or advance the architectural practices of today, which seem to have evident gaps.
Sources
- How Designers Think, Fourth Edition: The Design Process Demystified
- Design Thinking (The MIT Press)
- What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?
- The Origins of Design Thinking
- Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation
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