THINK LIKE AN How to Develop Critical, Creative and Collaborative Problem-solving Ski lis ARCHI - TECT Randy Deutsch RI BA '1ft! Publishing IV V VI 1 7 13 14 58 94 129 130 172 © Randy Deutsch 2020 198 Published by RIBA Publishing, 66 Portland Place, London, W1B 1AD 223 ISBN 9781 85946 931 6 224 The right of Randy Deutsch to be identified as the Author of 240 this Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, 256 Designs and Patents Act 1988 sections 77 and 78. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, 266 stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by 272 any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or 281 otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright owner. 284 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Commissioning Editor: Elizabeth Webster Assistant Editor: Clare Holloway Production: Sarah-Louise Deazley Designed and typeset by The First 47 Cover illustration by Bruce Bondy Printed and bound by Pureprint Group While every effort has been made to check the accuracy and quality of the information given in this publication, neither the Author nor the Publisher accept any responsibility for the subsequent use of this information, for any errors or omissions that it may contain, or for any misunderstandings arising from it. www.ribapublishing.com Contents IV Acknowledgements V Dedication VI Preface 1 Introduction: Solving Wicked Problems 7 Prologue: How to Think Like an Architect in Under Three Minutes 13 Part I: Critical Thinking 14 Section 1: Critical Thinking 58 Section 2: Facts, Fallacies and Photoshop 94 Section 3: Decision Making 129 Part II: Critical Creative Thinking 130 Section 4: Critical Creative Thinking 172 Section 5: Curiosity 198 Section 6: Problem Solving 223 Part III: Critical Collaborative Thinking 224 Section 7: Critical Collaborative Thinking 240 Section 8: Thinking with Others 256 Section 9: Persuasion 266 Appendix 272 Notes 281 Index 284 Image Credits IV Acknowledgements A huge thank you to RIBA Publishing Director Helen Castle, who was there from the very beginning, identifying a need for this book. It has been wonderful to have the opportunity to work with her on yet another book project, this time at 66 Portland Place. And to Senior Commissioning Editor at RIBA Publishing Elizabeth Webster for her eternal patience, expert advice and support throughout the writing process, and also Clare Holloway. To Production and Design Assistant Sarah-Louise Deazley and Copyeditor Liz Jones for their steadfast and assured input and advice throughout. And to Alex Synge for the excellent graphic design and typesetting of the book. If the book you hold deserves praise it is due to them – any shortcomings are entirely my own. To illustrator Bruce Bondy of Bondy Studio, whose drawings add depth, dimension and richness to the book. He was the best collaborator an author could ask for and a champion of the book from day one. Thanks to Sharon, Michol and Simeon for their companionship and support while I wrote not one but two architecture books during a global pandemic. Lastly, to my former professors and mentors Vernon Shogren, Olivio Ferrari and Dan Wheeler, from whom I learned the importance of thinking in the midst of – not in spite of – life. V Dedication This book is dedicated to encouraging you to become someone a human, machine or robot would want to collaborate with. VI Think Like an Architect Preface Fig 0.1: Architects think in pretty remarkable ways. Sharp Centre for Design by Will Alsop by way of Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay ‘But what is seeing without thinking?’ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe There is something your tutor or professor, school administrator or employer want you to know that they can’t tell you: You may be talented as a designer and adept using the latest technology, but you have some room for improvement when it comes to the oldest technology: thinking. One area that students, professors and practitioners typically struggle with is tacit knowledge. Knowledge that professionals gain over time but have difficulty explaining – knowledge that you either have or don’t. Most students and emerging practitioners can grasp technical skills fairly readily. Soft skills, on the other hand – including mindsets, attitudes and thinking skills – are rarely covered in university courses or training in practice. There is evidence that today’s students and emerging practitioners struggle with thinking and communicating their ideas, and learning and acquiring soft skills, multiplied by the decrease in mentoring of the upcoming generation by firms’ more senior members. Yet mastery of such tacit knowledge is arguably critical for both academic success and career longevity. This book addresses both this dearth and dichotomy. Preface VII School’s absolutely the right place to emphasise the combination of critical thinking, creative thinking and interpersonal intelligence. A school’s ability to blend or fold such vital content into other courses is a sign of both the course’s – and the school’s – relevance and ability to sustain itself into the future. Think Like an Architect is about the ordinary work required by you to achieve extraordinary results. I wrote it to share insights, strategies and skills picked up over my career as a practising architect, employer, professor and administrator, backed by science and the research of others. Between these covers is a world of ideas that will make everything you do and say about what you do better. The only technology required is that found between your ears. One tool we often overlook is the human mind, the most powerful tool we possess. The problem comes when we trust our instincts without questioning our assumptions or seeking evidence to back up our hunches. This book is here to help. Why do we continue to design buildings that ought to last decades without the capacity to accommodate all users on day one? Or design using the latest computational design tools but forget to show the surrounding context in our design studio presentations? Why are reason, science and evidence so ineffective against magical thinking? Why is it so difficult to influence people’s deeply held beliefs? Are ethical beliefs more like facts or more like preferences? How can we focus on long-term thinking when so many who we design and build for are focused on short-term thinking?1 While architecture is both a science and an art, architects and future design professionals have to be above the fray and can’t afford to engage in magical thinking. We have a duty to others – building users, neighbours, the public-at-large and not-yet-born future generations; the planet and its inhabitants. Even as the role of the architect faces an existential threat with the rise of technology, the way architects think ought to be preserved, practised and perpetuated. Why think like an architect? I am interested in the way architects think, the value that brings to the profession, and have done a lot of thinking about thinking – aka metacognition – lately, and this book is the result. It will encourage the development of your own metacognitive abilities to spur your cognitive growth and career trajectory. Think Like an Architect is about the way architects think critically, creatively and collaboratively to address the increasingly complex problems facing us all. For some readers this will be a refresher. For others this will help connect VIII Think Like an Architect the dots. For others still it will offer nuanced and myriad ways in which the architect adds value by the way they think. Buildings, and the process of building, have become increasingly complex undertakings, and there are several societal and industry challenges that could be overcome – including wicked problems where the answer either does not exist or is not readily apparent – if the reader had access to the information this book provides. The world today is filled with intractable, complex, wicked problems without obvious solutions. The insights, mindsets and thinking tools presented in this book will go a long way to help the reader address intractable wicked problems such as climate change, the health and wellbeing of the larger population, and urban issues, while addressing the deterioration of our infrastructure. Addressing these complex problems requires navigating and getting results from diverse teams, which in turn requires us to think in terms of others. Writing this book at a time of great upheaval, challenges to our wellbeing, and change ought to make acquiring the act of thinking critically, creatively and collaboratively all the more urgent. We’re living in a world with rising use of AI and machine learning; machines that think. Technological disruption and change makes the need to think effectively all the more urgent. Our increasingly intelligent tools may be optimised based on criteria we establish, but all lack common sense – something that humans have in abundance. To think like an architect prepares you for the world to come: the world of robots, automation, autonomous design, AI and machine learning, but also a world of mass migration, housing shortages, rising oceans and other impacts brought about by climate change. With the rise of AI and robots, process- driven tasks and jobs are going away. Creative and soft skills (i.e. empathy, collaboration) are more important than hard skills, since they are precisely the skills robots can’t automate. In the era of AI students need to rely on their thinking ability. Future skills vs capabilities Continuously evolving economic, technological and social changes will inevitably impact the employment marketplace long after you leave school and begin your career.2 Students attend architecture school for a variety of reasons: to learn how to design buildings; to learn how to practise architecture; to acquire marketable skills. But less frequently students pursue a degree to foster human capabilities that go beyond skill building. This book has ‘skills’ in the subtitle, but it easily could have read capabilities. Why? If architecture school better equips students, job seekers, and future career professionals for the realities of the twenty-first-century economy, it does so not just by focusing exclusively on acquiring marketable skills, but on investing in human capabilities like critical, creative and collaborative thinking.3 Many of the skills architects have today will in time become obsolete, whereas their capabilities – to place buildings in a larger context, to propose Preface IX and develop alternative outcomes, and to apply creative thinking to achieve improved results – will endure, likely becoming even more important than any individual skillsets. In my most recent book, Superusers, readers were encouraged to address the future with both confidence and aplomb. The book urged them to be open to acquiring new technology skills while honing their soft skills, demonstrating how so-called superusers have done so with substantial and meaningful career success.4 We often receive advice to ‘futureproof yourself’ by keeping your eyes open (on what?), becoming indispensable (how?) and staying abreast of the latest trends in technology (which?). Stay relevant and valued in school and in the workplace? OK. But how? Without offering specifics or addressing practical realities, this well-intended advice amounts to little more than platitudes at best, and at worst conflicting and confusing career advice.5 Three current capabilities happen to be among the most sought-after by professors, architecture school administrators and employers to thrive into the future: the ability to think critically, creatively and collaboratively6 – and demand for these skills is only increasing.7 In other words, to stay relevant and avoid career obsolescence, focus less on what you do (skills) and more on how you think (capabilities).8 What is it about the architect that no machine can replace? This is the question that Think Like an Architect seeks to answer. There are critical thinkers and creative problem solvers as well as collaborative thinkers, but few beside the architect bring this triple-threat combination of thinking abilities together in one person. This book is less a celebration of this fact than an assurance that these qualities continue. This book will help you recognise these thinking capabilities in yourself and show you how to build them into your own unique repertoire or toolbox. To assure your continued relevance, think critically, creatively and collaboratively – think like an architect. Why read a book like this? Many books focus on what to think. This one focuses on how to think, providing a foundation and establishing good thinking habits early on. The focus throughout is on the thought process – to help designers design better and present their ideas more effectively, and to think more rigorously, logically, thoroughly, creatively, intuitively, and in tandem with the thinking of others. Think Like an Architect is the book I wish I had read when I was just starting out, represents what I want my students to be aware of before they are my students, and what I want emerging professionals to understand before joining the firm.