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How to resuscitate a brief — stage 2

The second way to breathe life into a design brief is to remind ourselves that it was never as complete as it originally sounded.

We do this by exploring the Five Elements of a Design Brief:

  • The explicit – what is actually written.
  • The implicit – what is meant by what is written
  • The assumed – what is assumed in the writing and in the reading. 
  • The missing – what the brief writer forgot to tell you. 
  • The unknown – what the writer didn’t include in the brief because they hadn’t realised they wanted it yet.

In practice, read the brief aloud, slowly. For each sentence, ask:

  • What is explicit here?
  • What is implicit?
  • What is assumed?
  • What is missing?
  • What might be unknown?

The questions test both our understanding of the brief, and also whether we have the right requirements. And open to the door evolving the brief. 

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How to resuscitate a design brief – stage 1

Design briefs become lifeless when we treat them as fixed, and unchanging.

We bring life to them when we allow them to evolve.

The first stage is to make your design brief a live, editable document (with changes tracked if necessary).

The brief should prompt questions – write those down on the brief.

New requirements will be discovered – add those in so they don’t get lost.

New possibilities for what you want emerge – note these down too.

Gather the people who care about the brief to review these changes, challenge or approve them.

A living brief is one that is being worked on.

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Is your brief dead?

You are midway through a project. Ask yourself, has my design brief changed, or has it stayed the same.

If it hasn’t changed, then you should check if your design brief is very nearly, or very actually, dead.

A lifeless brief breathes no life into the design process

A brief without a pulse clings to its original constraints without shifting the boundaries.

An ex-brief is one that looks nothing like what you are working on.

A stiff brief is unmoved by new discoveries made during the design process.

A deceased brief ceases to be of any use.

If you suspect these symptoms then your brief needs urgent resuscitation. Because in design, a healthy brief is alive.

(It is possible that you brief may just be resting, in which case you need to wake it up).

[With apologies to Monty Python’s “Dead Parrot” sketch]

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The living brief

This week, I’ve been updating and consolidating my writing on design briefs. The design brief is a fundamental component of the design process, and it is a core topic in our design teaching.

But I realise in gathering together my writing that there is an idea I have been dancing around without naming it.

A design brief is not something that is static that we define at the start of a project. It is something that evolves, and grows as part of the design process.

I’ve started to call this the Living Brief. And you can read all about it here.

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A conversation with Hazel Hill Wood

At Hazel Hill Wood, we treat the place not just as a setting but an active participant in the work. A practice I learnt there is, on arrival, to tell the wood what I have come to do.

What follows is a reflection on that practice (first published on the Hazel Hill site) and a question that is an underlying motivation in my work on regenerative design.

A practice I learnt from Alan Heeks, the founder of Hazel Hill Trust, is, on arrival, to tell the wood what I had come here to do. And so I sat down this morning, by the Gatekeeper tree to share a fairy ordinary to-do list. But as I started, something else came out. 

The following is a transcript of that conversation with the wood.

It is hard to know if you want us here. All the people that come. Would it be better off if we stayed away? I am not attuned enough to the signals from the wood to be able to sense the answer. 

So I come at the question from a different angle. 

Ecosystems show us that every component evolves to play a part. Not survival of the fittest but survival of the whole. The system evolves to maximise the life-fullness that is possible within those limits. 

Humans have evolved as part of ecosystems, have evolved to play a part. To live well, even, in harmony with the rest of life. 

And yet, in much of the Global North, we seem to have drifted away from that relationship. At a societal level, we no-longer live in strong relation with or pay much attention to this wider pattern of life. So that our collective actions serve to deplete rather than enhance the ecosystems of which we are part. 

You are a place to help restore that relationship. A small node in a much wider movement of people who want to establish and mainstream a different relationship between humans and the rest of the living world. A relationship of attention, care and mutual thriving. 

At Hazel Hill Wood people can come to discover or rediscover their relationship with the living world. And can find healing and wellbeing through connecting with this wider web of life. 

When we are here we will treat you with respect. 

We will play an active part in seeking to grow the life-fullness of this place. 

And we will bring people under the boughs of your canopy, so that they can take what they learn here and create wider influence wherever they come from. 

To return to where I started, I cannot tell what you think of all of this, but I hope that our intrusion on the peace and tranquility of this place can have a positive impact here, and on ecosystems further afield. 

And I hope that you feel this is worthwhile. In the meantime, I’ll continue trying to listen out for an answer.

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Spotting people spotting kingfishers

My workshop today is in an office along the same river catchment as the one I live on, so my commute takes me deep into the Frome valley.

I know kingfishers nest here but I almost never spot them.

Luckily, I’ve found a hack. Look for someone with a massive telephoto lens. Stand nearby. Follow their gaze.

Today’s kingfisher was much closer than I expected, right on the near bank of the river.

A recurring theme in my posts over the last couple of weeks has been this idea of ecological participation.

Not just reducing harm. Not just “less bad”. But actively playing a part in enhancing the living systems we are part of.

That feels like a leap. And it is. And I think the first step is to start noticing differently.

Seeing that we are surrounded by life. Remembering that it’s there. Recognising that it’s the container for all that we do. I see it as a pathway on the mindset shift from separation to interdependence.

Because when we notice, we start to care. And when we care, we start to make different decisions.

Even as I write this, it’s easy to take the life that surrounds us for granted.

I’m fortunate to have a river like this running through my corner of the city.

And still, most days, I cycle past without really seeing it.

Maybe I’m not very good at spotting kingfishers.

So for now I will start with spotting kingfisher spotters.

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Repair as an ambition loop

In my previous post I wrote about how United Repair Centre are creating the infrastructure that is renewing repair in the fashion sector. 

I think their work is a great example of an ambition loop beginning to form. 

An ambition loop is a simple model for system change that connects three drivers:

  • Community need
  • Business opportunity
  • Political priority 

When these align, they can reinforce each other and allow a system intervention to scale. 

In the case of United Repair Centre, we can see all three drivers in place and beginning to reinforce each other. 

Community need

There is a need for meaningful work. 

Repair offers:

  • skilled employment
  • a route into employment 
  • the revaluing of craft that is at risk of disappearing. 

Business opportunity

Brands are under pressure to reduce waste, particularly in countries like France where the imperative for company take-back of waste is so high. 

Businesses also the opportunity to see repair as a valuable differentiator. 

There’s a chance to build stronger, longer-term customer relationships. 

Government priority

  • Reduce waste 
  • Create employment opportunities
  • Growing interest in onshoring work. 

–

Repair brings these drivers together into a reinforcing loop.

By training repairers through their academy, United Repair Centre creates a workforce that can reliably deliver repair services.

Businesses can then offer repair, building customer loyalty while diverting materials from landfill.

Government gains confidence that industry can respond to circular economy legislation.

This, in turn, drives more businesses to adopt repair, and more people into these roles.

What’s interesting is that change here depends on two things:

  • the existence of the mechanism
  • the confidence that grows from seeing it work

Once the system operates at a minimum viable level, the loop can begin to reinforce itself.

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Building repair infrastructure

Here are my working thoughts on United Repair Centre, one of the organisations I met at the Future Observatory event The New London Commons: Circular Hubs for Fashion and Construction.

This organisation does not just do repair.

They are building the infrastructure that makes repair possible — at scale — in the fashion industry.

A rich example of both an organisation aiming higher in the system, and the Living Systems Blueprint in action.

In my post earlier this week on steel reuse, I wrote about the emergence of a new ‘blue book’ on the operations shelf of the Systems Bookcase. This is about new operational systems: 

  • Recovery processes
  • Coordination between demolition and construction
  • Storage and logistics
  • New roles and responsibilities

None of this is visible in the final building — it is the hidden infrastructure that enables reuse to happen. 

It is very interesting to see how United Repair Centre is doing taking a similar approach in fashion. 

What’s particularly striking about their work is clearly it reflects the Living Systems Blueprint in action, building:

  • Interconnection
  • Symbiosis
  • Capacity to change

Interconnection

At a materials flow level, there is the connecting together of a waste stream with an input stream. 

But that means connecting many more stakeholders: 

  • Customers
  • Brands
  • Repairers
  • Logistics

And rather than disposable clothing from anywhere and thrown away to anywhere, their work reconnects people with the things they own and the people who repair them.

That is interconnection at many levels. 

Symbiosis

Turning a waste stream into a value stream is only the beginning.

From this, positive feedback loops can start to build.

Repair creates demand for skills.

Skills create livelihoods.

As repair becomes visible and valued, the perceived value of repaired goods increases.

Each part begins to reinforce the others.

This is a fascinating collective reversal of entropy — materials becoming more valuable over time through how we organise ourselves to work with them.

Capacity to change

By running a repair skills academy, they are not just building a pipeline — they are increasing the system’s ability to evolve.

Repair skills are adaptable and transferable.

And there is a learning loop between repairers and designers, enabling garments to be designed for repair from the outset.

This is not just a system that produces outputs.

It is a system that builds its own capacity to change.

There is an interesting difference from the steel case. In steel reuse, the enabling infrastructure remains largely invisible. Here, repair is made visible — badges, stitching, signs that say ‘repaired’.

Making repair visible shifts it from stigma to pride. And at that point, we are no longer just working on operations.

We are working on mindsets.

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Steel reuse: writing a new blue book

Structural steel reuse is on the rise, as this month’s Structural Engineer articles show.

But what might be seen as a material innovation is actually a shift in something more fundamental.

I see this work as our industry writing a new “blue book” on the operations shelf of the systems bookcase.

In other words, we are building the system that makes it possible for a designer to specify reused steel.

Because to make reuse work, the industry is having to create:

  • toolkits for recovery
  • processes for pre-demolition audits
  • new ways of coordinating demolition and new construction
  • infrastructure for holding and processing stock

None of this is visible in the final building.

But without it, reuse doesn’t happen.

In the systems bookcase, the operations shelf contains the factors that constrain or enable design decisions.

Everything listed above sits there.

In terms of transition, this is Horizon 2 (which we colour blue) — the in-between space where new practices can emerge that are both viable in the existing system but are a significant step towards the system we want to create. 

Let’s be clear: steel reuse is still a long way from being a process that is life-giving.

But it can significantly reduce the embodied impact of construction —

which is, at least, ecological-adjacent.

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Set design for a training room

If your brief is to design the set for a theatre piece set in a construction industry training room, then make sure it includes the following:

White boards. Spare furniture. A clock that doesn’t work. 

Security blinds, locked shut to keep intruders out, as well as the sunshine. 

White board fluid.  Extension leads. TV on a stand. 

Unconnected audio equipment. Post-it notes. Antibacterial fluid. 

Green cables. Red cables. Blue cables. Yellow cables. 

Archive boxes. Abandoned teleconference equipment. 

Laminated instruction sheets. 

Flip chart architecture. Highlighters. Slips of paper with the wifi code. Speakers. Panel heater.

And a hat stand. 

Arguably (I am sure I have argued this before) learning should be the objective of a high-functioning company. We don’t just do a thing: each we do it, we learn from it and do it better. (Otherwise lessons learnt become lessons lost.)

If learning were the organisational objective,, then the training room wouldn’t look like this. 

It wouldn’t be a storage space for forgotten equipment and excess furniture. 

It would be the nerve centre of learning. A place that celebrates learning rather than treats the experience as second rate. 

Just imagine what that room would look like.