Blog - Constructivist

January 21, 2021January 21, 2021

Sir Misha Black Award for Innovation in Design Education

I am really excited and honoured to share with you the news that I have just been awarded one of the 2020 Sir Misha Black Awards for Innovation in Design Education. The Award commemorates the life and work of design and architect Sir Misha Black. It was created in 1999 to honour the exceptional work of a teacher, team, department, or course within or between educational establishments in the UK.

September 14, 2020September 14, 2020

Trainee feedback: training on what to do after declaring a climate emergency

We asked members from our first cohort of ‘Training on what to do after declaring a Climate Emergency‘ participants what they thought of the course and why other people should think about going. Here are some of the things they said.

The support of the group alongside discussion of change models and tools was transformative in developing insight on how I can make positive change and resolve to take action. I would highly recommend it to those seeking to develop personal or organisational strategies in response to the climate emergency.
Julia Ratcliffe – Director – Scale Consulting

September 10, 2020September 10, 2020

Zoom magic tricks

Today I’m working with Nick Francis to develop some playful breakout activities for a conference. Here’s what we came up with.

September 10, 2020September 10, 2020

Designing your learning process – week one of IDBE

At Constructivist we talk lots about models for learning and also about models for understanding design. In this workshop we are combining the two: thinking about how to design your learning process. It’s my contribution to week one for a new cohort of students on the Cambridge Masters programme Interdisciplinary Design for the Build Environment.

September 8, 2020September 11, 2020

The Return of Training on what to do after declaring a Climate Emergency

Image showing Oliver Broadbent and Bengt Cousins-Jenvey delivering a workshop to twelve people

It’s been a year since many engineering and construction firms declared a climate and biodiversity emergency. Six months since the pandemic struck. But the climate clock is still ticking and the world is still heating. Are we one tenth of the way we need to get to in this decade to avoid the worst kind of climate breakdown?

In hindsight, making the declaration is the easy part: the difficult part is knowing what to do next. That is why we created the course ‘Training on what to do after declaring a Climate Emergency’. It recognises that the emergency status is a new operating paradigm for most organisations, and that within those organisations there will be individuals and teams whose job it is to work out how to respond. We created this course to support those people.

August 27, 2020August 27, 2020

Guided Q&A versus guided plenary

I’m writing a quick post here to share a response I am providing to a recent attendee of our online facilitation course. The question relates to two of the four facilitation modes that we teach: Guided Q&A and Guided Plenary.

May 13, 2020August 30, 2020

All online for an introduction to conceptual design

This month our face-to-face and webine cohorts for our Introduction to Conceptual Design for Structural Engineers course joined to form one online group, enabling us to deliver to both groups despite lockdown.

The course splits conceptual design up into three phases: establishing the brief, creative thinking and convergent thinking and provides simple models for understanding each of these phases.

February 3, 2020February 3, 2020

Constructivist Creativity Reading List

This is the Constructivist Creativity Reading List. These are the books and book chapters that have changed the way I think about creativity and that inform the training that we do at Constructivist. Where a book relates to a specific course, I have made that link, but most of these books are generally applicable. I’ve also linked in other articles I’ve written about these topics where relevant.

January 27, 2020January 28, 2020

Giving the gift of knowledge

To celebrate the start of a new decade Constructivist is experimenting with the gift of knowledge. From now until the end of February we’re offering you the opportunity to join one of our courses* for free, when you buy a course for a friend or colleague.

Essentially, this is a buy one get one free deal, allowing you to gift a course and then enjoy it with that friend.

If you’re interested in taking us up on the offer please email Lucy and let her know which course you’d like to buy, and for whom.

*courses run via the IstructE are excluded from this offer.

December 1, 2019September 23, 2020

Follow-up notes on keeping a briefing diary

As part of our introduction to conceptual design course I ask participants to spend a week keeping a briefing diary. The aim is two-fold: to recognise that design briefs come in all shapes and sizes, not just in a formal design context; and to give participants the chance to apply the tools we discussed for picking apart a brief.