Scales of Innovation

It is interesting to look at how innovation has developed in different industrial sectors, especially in those related to, or comparable with the Building Industry.  The car, aircraft, train and yacht building industries all have similarities to the building industry:  Their products include shelter and protection, and provide environments to sustain human life, but each product is produced in a very different way.  This is the result of economies of scale, market competition, and the flexibility of governing business structures to adapt and meet market challenges.  This set of videos below suggests a set of parameters with which innovation can be measured on a set of sliding scales.  These might be:

Measuring levels of innovation

In the car industry, humans are mainly need to check that the automated work has been carried out correctly.  Plant, logistics, sequencing and timing etc., is all set out to handle the specific components which make up the product. 

Boeing has the world's largest assembly line building. This Air Bus video shows plant, production facilities and lifting machinery are all set up to ensure the rapid assembly of the aircraft, with the most efficient human interaction. 

Trains come together in more traditional engineering workshops with lifting systems which can be used for a variety of tasks depending upon the order.  This video shows less automation than the others, with engineers in control of their work and responsible for their own programme.

Yacht building is even more of a manual operation.  The assembly here takes place in a workshop using a combination of computerised design and analysis, digitised pre-production followed by skilled and unskilled labour.  Working with composites can be a messy business despite the clean and elegant product it can create.

This video expresses how prefabrication and off site construction can assist with the speed and quality of a house build, but the constructional tolerances are not as tight as the other examples and there is a lot more physical labour and man-handling of materials and components to get them in to place.  Innovations in this example have shortened the number of site processes, but the shape and form of the product has not changed significantly.  It could be argued that much of the innovation is hidden in the end.

Innovation in the building industry might not be as progressive as these other industrial sectors but it is making advances.  It is noticeable though, that while the more actively innovative sectors let performance dictate form, as if capturing the industrial zeitgeist, the building industry seems to value aesthetics and often traditional forms and materials.  It's worth an investigation to see how much this leads the development of the industry, or if it happens as a consequence.   

How to Innovate

Innovation is something of a buzz-word in the architectural press, but there is not much out there to define what innovation is or how to achieve it.  The Architectural profession and Building Industry do not innovate as much as they could, or should.  Development guidance for Architectural practices often follows an approach based on establishing and marketing a vision for the practice which places it in the hierarchy of the competition, within an established sector framework.  The result is that everyone is largely pitching for a place in the same pool where difference is limited by specialist design areas and size of projects, and that's what we base our USPs on.  This pool is defined by the professional structures of the Building Industry, the very structures which often act as boundaries and negate innovation.  But what if we were able to move these boundaries?

Many business plan development strategies are focused on how to operate within the professional structures of the existing industrial sector.  When you are working within the same set of conventions as everyone else, it is difficult to establish a distinction within the market.  

Phil McKinney's book Beyond the Obvious is an inspirational resource.  It describes the methods for establishing a business innovation strategy and how to manage it.  The practices it teaches are not bound to conforming to the established patterns of an industrial sector.  Instead they seek to challenge them.  They are not limited to seeing how one practice can raise its position in the pecking order of other practices.  Instead they challenge you to think how to stand apart from the rest, not just above.  Beyond the Obvious combines many techniques such as brainstorming and lateral thinking, with Killer Questions to encourage organisations to have the bravest ideas - ideas which could be game-changing, not just to the business but to the industry itself.

Phil McKinney's methods challenge conventions by asking Killer Questions about the Who (your Client), What (your business) and How (your working practices).  Workshops can uncover some very daring and challenging ideas.  FIRE is an acronym for the management stages for developing innovative ideas and making them real.

It's a must read for any practice wanting to innovate, grow, develop, economise, or even play with creative ideas (because that's what Architects like to do - right?).  The book describes very precisely the methodology for establishing an innovative culture in to your business practice, and road mapping a way forward to a more creative, dynamic and profitable future.  I'd recommend bolting it into your (streamlined, efficient, engaging and user friendly) QA system, to ensure it is integrated in to the heart of your business practice.

Thanks Phil!

When is a door not a door?

The Imperial War Museum (IWM), London has reopened!  It's a great place for looking at innovative ways of getting from one space to another. These doors, hatches and openings often work to high performance design requirements, having to be air-tight, water-tight, or deal extreme structural loads etc.  I really enjoyed dragging my kids around, describing the high levels of innovation.

So, for any architect who has gone stir-crazy at some point, preparing door schedules, details and elevations, which are essentially the same basic product dressed up in different ways, here's a collection of some of the fun and clever alternatives on display.

Innovation in the design of doorways, from the basic openings of the air raid shelter to the blast doors of the tank.  Centre, the fuselage of a submarine is designed to create a person-sized space between chambers - a structural solution to a human scale.

The IWM London also demonstrates how design teams can work closely to integrate components so that each has several functions, maximising efficiency.  This is a subject of previous blog posts where design integration (as a progression from design co-ordination) is something seldom seen in the building industry.

The spigot on this Japanese war plane acts as the structural support for the wing and an exhaust duct from the engine: One item working in response to structural, environmental and aesthetic (aerodynamic) requirements.

On this theme there are lots of other cool places to visit with kids during the Summer holidays, to discover innovative ways of getting from one space to another.  We've spent time at The Science Museum, RAF Museum, the Transport Museum and HMS Belfast in London and the Imperial War Museum in Duxford.

Hatches, doors and entrances to a selection of innovative products.
Bottom left demonstrates the thickness of the monocoque fuselage of a 747 Jumbo Jet - the material which separates you and a six-mile drop!

Beyond museums, there's lots of useful references available on the internet from military sources,

It's amazing what an aircraft can do.

Submarines,

Imagine living in some of these environments for months on end.

Space stations and vehicles,

From the International Space Station and Apollo landing capsule.

Buildings,

Non conventional doors in buildings often lead to non conventional ways of using them...

and Sci-fi.

References from Sci-Fi.  Star Wars has lots of great ideas.

These examples are included as the start of a collection on a Pinterest board.

My kids tell me they are looking forward to going back to school!

Monocoque Structures - For Kids

One of the exercises on the carousel of activities described in our post Architecture for Kids, was making monocoque structural enclosures with cardboard.  The idea is really simple.  A set of cardboard shapes attach together at their edges with bulldog clips.  As three dimensional arrangements, they take on their own structural integrity, even in flimsy cardboard.  Using panels as structural components in preference to frame structures has the advantage of not requiring cross bracing or triangulated structural paths, which we noted in Play Time.  The set consists of only a few shapes taken from the platonic solids (equilateral triangle, square, pentagon) and the Bucky-ball (hexagon).

The platonic solids

The Bucky-Ball: Pentagon and hexagon form the basis of geodesic structures.

The key constraint is that the edges of all the shapes are the same length so they fit together neatly.

Shapes made from scrap card with rotary cutting and perforating blades.
Shapes make model panels for monocoque constructions.

Equilateral triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon - the toolkit of shapes (panels).

Starting with the platonic solids as a base and expanding from there, it is quite easy to make interesting geometric enclosures which retain their structural integrity.

Platonic solids Tetrahedron, Cube, Octahedron, Dodecahedron, Icosahedron plus the Bucky Ball

With this set of components, the possibilities for making shapes and enclosures are great.  The design might be for a den, a space to stand in, a bridge, a space to sleep in, or just a experiment to build to build the biggest structure possible.

An additional bonus of the system, combinations of panels (especially triangular ones) allow structural enclosures to move and morph in to different shapes when junctions are freed up.

They are so simple, the kids in the architecture workshops took to them straight away, working with them to create their own unique spaces.

Testing how the panels go together to make enclosures with a Year 5 class at Furzedown Primary School.
(Botton left, a space bug enough to crawl in to...) 

The implications to architectural design are not insignificant.  Scaling the shapes up in to larger sized building panels, they could be used as a design solution for any number of functions, from a garden office, to a pop up cinema, to relief shelters, or to a fully weather tight building.  With the same connection strategy at the edges, panels can be made out of different materials to be solid and insulated (walls), be permeable to air (give ventilation), clear or translucent (windows and roof lights), or provide access (doors).

Possibilities of building monocoque structures with a selection of
- panel shapes and
- panel materials
to create a wide variety of functional enclosures.

This little system offers the possibility of a flexible design solution for creating rapidly deployed structures with a single process assembly.  This single process is something which is in contrast to the increasing complexity of structures such as the wall in our current building industry and could prove an advantageous innovation. 

Architecture for Kids

Architecture for kids
Children are possibly the best conceptual thinkers because of their naive understanding of the world and their innocent questioning. So why not teach Architectural Design in schools? It's a novel subject to most children, which they approach without stylistic or structural preconceptions. The results of their fresh-minded application to the subject are often inspired. We have been running a set of workshops on this subject Architecture for Kids at Furzedown Primary School in London SW17. The kids have enjoyed it greatly and I'm not afraid to say that I have probably learnt as much from the kids, as the kids have from the exercises.

The National Curriculum
The work was designed to fit in to the requirements of the Current National Curriculum in England for design and technology programmes of study, (published 11September 2013). It calls for a process of designing and making using a set of skills based around maths, science, engineering, computing and art. Key areas in the document include building confidence and understanding of design, innovation and developing skills in design representation and making.  We aimed to address these requirements, but by the nature of the work we have done I believe we have exceeded many of them. 

The work also addressed Furzedown Primary School's own Programme of Study for childrens' development, which includes activities such as cutting, folding and slotting materials such as card and understanding mechanical structures.  

The School also holds the Artsmark Gold standard with the Arts Council, England.  The work we did will contribute to some of the sections of this award, for the School's continued accreditation.  

Workshops
The inspiration for this set of workshops came from our experiences at the Royal Academy's Sensing Spaces Exhibition. From the reaction of the kids to the exhibits and workshop there, it was clear from the start that the focus of the study should be on light, space, colour and materials. (The discussion of architectural design as an arrangement of standard parts - walls, floors, ceilings, doors and windows, was avoided).

The workshops began after informal planning sessions to discuss the learning outcomes and objectives.  They were delivered through team-teaching, by the Art Teacher Ms Michaela Truscott, Form Teacher Ms Annabel Synge and architect in residence (that's me), sharing professional expertise, and delivered to a year 5 class of 9 to 10 year olds.  All 30 kids in the class were included and always engaged in the exercises, which were sometimes set out on a 'carousel' of architectural activities.  

Structures Workshop
This workshop began with a brief presentation, looking at different types of structure, how it is used in buildings, in nature and in product design. It also looked at unusual structures and how different structural types can be combined as hybrids to make new, innovative and interesting solutions. 

Looking at types of structure, loads and performance,
Structures in nature, in buildings and other products,
Hybrid and unusual structures.

We used some props and structural toys to help illustrate and inspire, including tensegrity models, folded card structures, a demonstration of frame vs panel and a Hoberman Sphere. 

Examples of tensegrity structures, the Hoberman Sphere and folded sheet structures.
Pros and cons of frame vs panel, and benefits of structural triangles.

Using as many different sets of construction toys as we could find, the children worked in groups to experiment with the ideas we had just discussed in the presentation.  Each group had a nominated photographer to take sequential photos for time-lapse videos on iPads. 

The class experimented with shapes, frames and interlocking planes to create freestanding structures and enclosures.
(Top left, without any prior reference a model of the Walking City started to appear...)

At the end if the session each group gave a short presentation about their work.  They described what they had tried to do, what worked and what didn't, and what they had learnt.  The enthusiasm of the kids illustrated how much they had engaged in the process and (unlike my days back at the Bartlett) no-one was apprehensive to stand up and discuss what they had attempted. 

All the kids were keen to share their thoughts and findings with the class.

Drawing Workshop
Here we looked at ways of representing spacial designs with drawings, how to understand and read architectural drawings, and how to create them. 

Looking at orthogonal 2D drawings (plans, sections and elevations) and how to project them in to 3D.

Introducing different forms of architectural drawing and representation:
The inspirational drawing, explanatory sketch, CGI, concept model, cut-away drawings etc.
Different ways to engage the viewer with the design proposals.

The kids worked at a number of different methods including drawing concept plans by hand and projecting them into 3D with axo-paper. 

For a first time using axo-paper, there were some very ambitious attempts at curved structures and cut-away drawings.

Although the kids had access to the computer, sketch-up and several iPad drafting apps (which they can use better than me), we started with hand drawing because of the freedom it allows when beginning a creative process.

The hand is the most articulate and intricate piece of machinery ever created and the feedback between hand and brain is vital for developing creative skills.  I believe working with pencils, pastels, chalks, paints and charcoals etc., offer so much more stimulus for developing creative skills than the computer mouse or touch screen.

As before, the kids presented their work and discussed their ideas for spaces and places with the class.

Design Workshop
With a brief introduction looking at space, form, function, light, structure, materials, location and access (making reference to our Sending Spaces experience), we set to work on designs for architectural installations. 

Looking at design considerations:
Is it an object or a space, is it an active or passive space, what material resources are required?
Analysis of site, daylight and sunlight.
Are surfaces transparent, opaque or textured?
High spaces feel different to wide spaces.
Thinking about colour psychology and innovation.

Designs were initially developed on paper with reference to the range of materials and resources we had available to build with.  

Some of the initial designs referred to scale, materials, structure and function etc.
 A very enthusiastic young architect designed an articulated exo-skeleton using card sheet folded in to three-dimensional flexible surfaces. 

Working in the Design Workshop:
Left hand images: Samples of card structures and perspex samples to help engage kids minds.
Top right: Pencil stack shows how they instinctively they started to rethink all objects as structural / architectural components.
Bottom right: Testing the Tensegrity models

This workshop concluded with a review and discussion of the work and proposals. 

Proposals were given a lot of focused thought and were site specific.

Prototyping (model making) Workshop
Developing the work of the Design Workshop, prototype models were made of the design proposals using smaller scale versions of the larger set of materials we had.  Our set of material resources included cardboard sheets, rolls and tubes, paper and card, milk bottles, scooby string, Perspex samples, old estate agent boards and old packing material.  Beyond the standard set of materials you would expect to find in a school art room, all the materials we resourced were free and fully recyclable.  This met the requirements of the school's environmental and sustainability policy.

The kids really engaged with the process of designing directly with materials.  Scissors replaced pencils and the materials replaced paper.  The results were very impressive, especially considering they were produced by a class of 10 year olds. 

Models made, based on the drawn designs prepared earlier.  Testing structure, space, light and form on a small scale.
Bottom right is a rather cool beach hut.

From the set of models, a selection of designs were chosen to build at a larger scale as architectural installations. 

Making Workshops

The Random Funky Festival Pavilion.
One of the designs chosen to work up to full-scale.

Case study
The Random Funky Festival Pavilion is the design of one if the class members. It's a pop-up space to relax with friends and chill-out in. It is assembled from a set of components which can be relocated as required, very quickly.  It consists of a permeable perimeter wall and a central canopy to shade occupants from the sun. Structural triangles in the canopy and their supports assist to hold the installation up efficiently.  It took some time to create and a team of kids enthusiastically volunteered their break times and lunch times to complete it.  Although this firs part was a little labour intensive, an advantage of this workshop process was that the component pieces could be reused for several different installations without a significant amount of additional work.  The young Architect behind this design was delighted to see her work realised. She said it was 'the best day ever'. 

The Random Funky Festival Pavilion.
A pop-up celebration space.

We believe all the children, without exception, gained a lot from this sequence of workshops and significantly developed their understanding of spacial design. We believe the process of working from paper designs, to models, then full scale installations has developed their confidence in spacial and three dimensional design as well as their ability to work with large format materials to build full-scale installations. 

We have found the creativity and enthusiasm of the children incredible and we intend this to be a start of a developing set of workshops with Furzedown Primary School and hopefully others. We'll be posting more work from kids practicing Architecture on this blog site as work develops, so please call back.

Thanks again to Furzedown Primary School, Art Teacher Ms Michaela Truscott and Year 5 Form Teacher Ms Annabel Synge.

Space To Let - In a mobile den

In our Architecture for Kids workshops at Furzedown Primary School, we've been experimenting with more of our estate agent boards.  The aim was to create a simple, non-conventional 3D form which could be used as an enclosure, or den.  Minimal work to the boards was an advantage, so that the children could work with the material directly.

We trialed lots of options in the workshops with small scale card rectangles, creating different forms.  This one below was based on the dodecahedron and only required holes drilling at the corners for connections.

Playing with small scale card pieces and a stapler.  Keeping it simple.

Working with the real boards, it became clear that the material would not support the structure at the base, in the same way as the card model did.  Making it in to a complete sphere enabled the object to work as a structural whole and keep its form a lot more easily.  Even if it looked a bit floppy at times, it could easily be used as a den, and when rolled about in the school courtyard it worked efficiently to retain its original form.  

The finished structure.

It was a bit of a surprise to realise how big it was, despite the scaled card people in the model. It has a lot of presence in the school courtyard, especially infront of small kids.    

An accidental photo climbing in to the ball, but it looks fun.
Its better than the pictures I normally take, so here it is.

With some kids inside pushing it round, another impromptu team-building game developed.  Everyone has to work together to walk the ball around, stepping over the rolling structure to avoid being thrown out.  Set out with an obstacle course and a couple of teams, it should be great fun.

Testing the structure with some Year 6 kids, walking it around the courtyard at Furzedown Primary School.
One said ' Now I know how my hamster feels'

It's become another popular destination at break and lunch times.  Everyone appears to enjoy the space and is used in lots of different ways.

It's gained a lot of interest and receives a lot of inquisitive interpretation.  Its a den, a meeting point, a place to have lunch and a human hamster ball.

Without conventional doors, children start to reinvent how to enter and exit spaces.

Because the boards were connected together with bolts, penny washers and wing nuts, they could easily be dis-assembled and rebuilt in different configurations.  

Different configurations of enclosure tested, guided by some of the small scale prototype experiments of earlier workshops.  (Small card models lying nearby)

Using the boards portrait worked with the structural integrity of the corrugated plastic, and the enclosure stood up more easily as a cone (although the geometric pattern was still similar to that of the original ball).

Making it higher and higher.  As high as the boards will allow, or they dare...

Adding additional layers to the base allowed it to be higher, giving more places to enter, exit and look through.

Not a very inconspicuous hide, but it worked.

Very quickly it made a good place to hide in, to observe with anonymity the the other goings-on in the school garden.

Team building with boards

For our Architecture for Kids workshops at Furzedown Primary School, we were lucky to acquire a set of estate agents boards, on their way to the recycling centre.  We wanted to see how we could take these two-dimensional (flat) sheets and give them three-dimensional qualities and structural integrity, with as little adjustment as possible.  One solution we came up with uses interlocking diagonal slots which means they can achieve a free-standing structural form with three boards (using structural triangles).

The boards in one arrangement on the green at Furzedown Primary School, London SW17.

After receiving the boards, we investigated how we could work with them using scaled down card pieces, and card people to give a relative size.  Lots of different methods of linking them were tried, with some more successful than others.

Testing structure and space with scaled down card pieces.

 The diagonal slotted solution seemed to work the most efficiently, although with the connections being on the corners, it does not conform to our usual preconceptions of a vertical and horizontal working world.

Before cutting the actual boards we trialled some quarter size pieces using the off-cuts from the chairs we made earlier.

Trials with quarter size boards.

 The kids enjoyed the unconventional spaces they produced and the differences in light that each differently angled surface produced:  Lots of enthusiasm for creating different structures.

Investigating the structural and sculptural spaces.

The full size boards have become a bit of a hit at the school, beyond the Architecture workshops.  At each break time and lunch time they have become a popular activity where groups of friends can play together to make spaces, and create their own designs.

Testing out the boards for the first time and investigating how they work, and the spaces they create.

It's also proven to make a useful team building exercise.  When groups of children work together with a set of boards, no one can be the dominant instructor, and no one can be the follower.  Because of the way they fit, balance, find structural integrity and make spaces in unusual ways, it turns in to a very collaborative process where each person holding a board gives instruction and works with feedback to find a solution.

Teams working with the boards.  You have to be hands-on to understand how they work.

On hot summer days they are great for pitching up a quick shelter, to chill with friends and and enjoy lunch.

Putting a quick base up to discuss what really matters...

Or a space for one.