To change the systems we work within, the best place to start is with our mindsets…
When Michael Pawlyn and Steve Tomlin created the Architects Declare movement in 2019, they were inspired by Donella Meadows, a leading person in the systems thinking world. She had identified that the most impactful way to change systems is by changing our mindsets. Not goals, rules or access to information. But mindsets.
How do we do this? How do we change the way we naturally think or approach our work?
This has been at the forefront of out thinking as we have been developing a new definition for what good design might be in 2024. We really wanted to create something that would help us not only incorporate current ideas about what this could and should be, we wanted to create something that would help us approach projects in different ways. Ways that open our thinking up to new possibilities and potential.
After starting over 3 years ago with the fine USA AIA Design Excellence Framework, we morphed this into a Design Leadership Framework as we incorporated the contributions from our First Nations Advisory Group. We went into hiatus for a while as we realised we needed our very own approach, and at the end of 2023 after inspiration from
the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) (handprints representing good things we do as opposed to footprints which record the damage)
Tyson Yunkaporta (oral cultures using hands to more easily remember things)
Stan Grant’s address to the 2023 AIA Conference (where has asked why our buildings don’t talk about where we are, not who we are) and
Regenerative design principles of Regenesis
along with the developed aim to create an approach that can:
be understood and relevant across this large, diverse country;
accommodate many different places, people and projects;
be easily remembered and used with our peers, colleagues, and clients; and
create the space for inspiring questions that change our mindsets about what is possible
the Handprints of Good Design Emerged.
We are now in the process of piloting this with a range of universities, some of whom are working with practices. The AIA is in the process of creating a page for feedback on its webpage so we can develop this into the best framework it can be :-)