Table Of ContentTHINK
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
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Published by RIBA Publishing, 66 Portland Place, London, W1B 1AD
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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,
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Designs and Patents Act 1988 sections 77 and 78.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
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any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
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otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright owner.
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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.
