Category: News

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Field notes: operating the Decision Engine

I’ve written lots of posts this week on decision-making, and that’s because I have run three rounds of The Decision Engine workshop — part three in our Critical Thinking programme. 

The Decision Engine imagines decision-making as a production line that we build and operate. A decision travels through this system — starting with how the question is framed, moving through decision criteria, weighing subjective and objective factors, and arriving (eventually) at a decision.

It’s a model I first helped develop at Think Up during our 2015 collaboration with Arup on the Conceptual Design Mastery programme. Since then, I’ve developed it to account for everything from emotional data and gut feel to AI and emergent behaviour.

But the point is not to turn decision-making into a laborious stepwise process, but rather to build critical insight into our personal and group decision-making. 

Interesting questions that have fallen out of this week’s workshops include:

Should you start with developing ideas or agreeing your decision-making criteria?

Are we deciding — or are we building the mechanism by which other people decide?

What’s the role of subjectivity, and how do we get better at working with it?

When is a good time to decide?

And how do we continuously learn from our decisions.

Plenty to chew on, including whether we could run a day-long, stand-alone course on decision-making in future. Watch this space. 

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Sleep, subconscious and napping at work.

This week we ran an online session in our Critical Thinking series exploring a topic not usually found in professional training agendas: sleep and the subconscious.

We often ask the question: When do you get your best ideas? Unsurprisingly, no one said “at my desk.” We usually use the question to explore idea generation, but here it opened the door to a deeper conversation about how insights often arise when we’re not consciously trying—on walks, in the shower, while dozing off.

We introduced the idea that our subconscious is always working, quietly filtering, sorting, and remixing our experiences. But like a party next door, we can only hear it if we turn the mental volume down.

We looked at:

  • The role of sleep cycles (NREM for data sorting, REM for pattern generation)
  • The value of unstructured time in creativity
  • Whether we should actually be paid to nap at work
  • How all this supports critical thinking at every stage of the OODA loop

Perhaps surprisingly, we started with a short guided meditation—done in the middle of a busy office—helped participants notice just how noisy their minds are, and what might be waiting underneath.

Sometimes our best thinking begins when we stop.

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From Ideas to Evidence — testing early concepts in structural design

This week marked the final session in our Introduction to Conceptual Design for Structural Engineers series, where we moved from generating ideas to something more demanding: whether the ideas are any good or not.

The focus of the session was modelling and testing—but not in the technical-detailing sense. Instead, we explored how early-stage models can help test key assumptions, communicate design intent, and show where the design needs to be improved.

We introduced the concept of the key system — in other words, the one factor that in the design the shapes how all other factors will follow.

Sometimes that’s the structural loads. Sometimes it’s the construction sequence. Sometimes it’s something more unexpected.

Participants explored different types of models—sketches, physical forms, mood boards—and reflected on how the right model depends on the audience. A key idea here: this is not about models that you need loads of compute to execute, these are quick sketches for the journey home from site on the train.

This session closed with a review of the whole process, from brief to idea generation to modelling and testing.

 Up next: We’re developing a follow-on course, Advanced Conceptual Design for Team Leaders, which will take the conversation further—looking not just at individual creativity, but how we approach conceptual design as a team.

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The Map Room – mapping systems, horizons, and change

This week we ran The Map Room, the second workshop in our Critical Thinking for Engineers (and Other Humans) programme. If the Observatory was about looking outwards, this session was about making sense of what we’ve seen—mapping the system, tracing its logic, and finding out where we might start to make change.

We explored:

  • The Systems Bookcase model: a tool for organising system layers, from what gets built through to the values and paradigms that shape it.
  • The Three Horizons framework: helping participants spot signs of long-term change—and understand their own role in it.
  • The Library of Systems Change: a way of recognising how future practices are already quietly present in today’s systems.

Some of the most powerful insights came when participants started applying the tools to parts of their work they hadn’t considered “design” before—like internal policy, comms strategies, or team culture. It was a reminder that systems thinking isn’t just for buildings or infrastructure—it’s for how we work, organise, and evolve.

We also talked about system boundaries, shifting roles, and what it means to design something that doesn’t just meet a brief, but changes the system the brief sits inside.

The Map Room builds on the Observatory, taking data and analysing it in readiness for the Decision Engine, where we decide on the next course of action to take. That will come later in June.

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What to Do When You’re Stuck – Turning the Kalideascope in Conceptual Design

This week, we delivered Session 3 of our Introduction to Conceptual Design for Structural Engineers, part of the ongoing programme we run with the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE).

In this session, we explored what happens when design thinking gets stuck. When initial ideas run out, when the first solution doesn’t quite fit, or when you hit a creative block — what do you do next?

The answer: you turn the Kalideascope.

Turning the Kalideascope is about deliberately shifting perspective to unlock new ideas. We introduced two practical techniques:
• Ask What If — to reframe problems, imagine alternatives, and expand possibilities.
• Professional Palette — using familiar structural forms as creative prompts for rapid ideation.

We also explored the distinction between conceptual design and detailed design, recognising that the early concept phase is the time for quick experimentation and testing, even when information is incomplete.

The session closed with the key question:

How do you know if an idea is a good one?
The answer lies in defining clear tests linked to the brief — giving designers a structured way to evaluate their early-stage ideas.

We’ll wrap up the series next week with Session 4, where we’ll bring these tools together into a structured design process.

Read more about our Introduction to Conceptual Design for Structural Engineers course.

Find out more
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Exploring Ecosystem Intelligence in Design and Critical Thinking

This week, we delivered the next module in our Critical Thinking series: Ecosystem Intelligence.

As we navigate ever more complex systems—whether in infrastructure, urban development, or organisational change—we need better ways to understand what helps systems thrive. For this, we can look to the living world itself. Ecosystem intelligence invites us to learn from nature’s patterns of interconnection, symbiosis, and adaptability.

In this workshop, we explored:

  • What thriving looks like in living systems and how these principles can inform design and decision-making.
  • How to recognise patterns of flow, exchange, and feedback in the systems we work with.
  • The importance of designing for continuous learning and adaptation, rather than static solutions.

Using the Living Systems Blueprint as a guide, participants reflected on how these ideas apply to their own projects and professional contexts. The session offered a chance to step back, rethink projects and approach complex challenges with a systems-thinking mindset.

This workshop builds on the ideas from The Regenerative Structural Engineer and forms part of a broader journey through critical thinking for design professionals.

Critical Thinking for Engineers (and other humans)

This module is part of our critical thinking programme. Find out about other modules in the programme

Find out more
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Join us for the London launch of The Pattern Book for Regenerative Design

We’re delighted to announce the London launch event for The Pattern Book for Regenerative Design — happening on Wednesday 19th June, 6–7.30pm at the Society Building in Clerkenwell.

This is an evening for engineers, designers and other humans who want to help shift the construction industry, one project at a time.

Oliver Broadbent will give a short talk about the book: how it emerged from the Regenerative Design Lab, why it matters, and how you can use it in practice. There’ll be copies available to purchase and sign.

The event is free to attend — but places are limited. Feel free to bring a friend who would enjoy this work.

Register here – and bring a friend too!

Come along, connect with fellow practitioners, and celebrate the next step in this growing community.

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Exploring Policy and Place – a Regenerative Design Gathering at Chatham House

On 7 May, we brought together members from all four cohorts of the Regenerative Design Lab, along with a wider group of thinkers, policymakers and practitioners, for a special event at Chatham House. Titled Regenerative Design: Exploring Policy and Place, the event explored how regenerative ideas are finding momentum across construction, policy, and planning. The event was also the final one in the most recent cycle of the Regenerative Design Lab, which we have been running in partnership with the Sustainability Accelerator at Chatham House

With keynote provocations, a panel of leading voices, and conversation corners during the event, we asked:

Where is regenerative design already working? What are the breakthroughs and challenges? And how do we scale this thinking into real, local action?

We heard from:

  • Joel de Mowbray (Yes Make) on circular construction
  • Rachel Fisher on regenerative thinking in national policy
  • Joe Jack Williams on 100-year business planning
  • Rahul Patalia on regenerative masterplanning
  • Rowan Conway drawing together the implications of regenerative design for policy

The day also marked the first public preview of the Pattern Book for Regenerative Design, offering practicable tools for those looking to deepen their practice.

We’ll share more reflections and write up the day more fully once we’ve had time to digest the many conversations and connections that emerged. For now, a huge thank you to everyone who joined us—and to Chatham House for hosting.

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Today’s webinar — Gathering inputs for the creative process

Today we ran Session 2 of our Introduction to Conceptual Design for Structural Engineers, part of the ongoing programme we deliver through the Institution of Structural Engineers. Titled Filling the Kalideascope, this session focused on how to gather and organise the raw material that fuels early-stage design thinking.

The heart of the session was our Kalideascope model—a tool we use to help engineers (and other humans) structure creative thinking by collecting information, questions, and ideas in parallel. Participants explored how real breakthroughs often come not from solving the brief, but from widening it—bringing in unexpected inputs, hidden tensions, and emerging possibilities.

There was a particular moment of shared recognition when we asked: “Who here takes photos of structural details on holiday?”—a seemingly simple question that lit up the conversation and revealed how much creative thinking is already happening, often unconsciously.

Participants shared sources of inspiration ranging from childhood cartoons to precedents in industry, highlighting what we call information over time—inputs that are gathered slowly and personally, long before the design brief arrives.

One participant returned from the coffee break and said, “I’m starting to have lots of questions now.” It reinforced a core theme of the session: sometimes the best thinking happens when we’re away from our desks.

We closed by asking everyone to sketch and place their ideas into the Kalideascope. As always, the act of drawing unlocked new lines of thought. Even moments of being stuck became teachable—reminders that conceptual design is as much about navigating uncertainty as it is about generating ideas.

Up next week: what to do when your thinking gets stuck, and how to use constraints and structure to get things flowing again.

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Critical Thinking — Learning from Experienced Designers

As part of our Critical Thinking Training Programme, we offer an optional module where participants learn directly from the experiences of senior designers and leaders.

Rather than relying solely on theoretical models, we invite experienced practitioners to talk openly about how they approach critical thinking in complex, real-world situations. Through a series of interviews, they share the tools, strategies, and experience they draw on when observing, analysing, deciding, and communicating in real project environments.

Continue reading “Critical Thinking — Learning from Experienced Designers”