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 informationquestions, 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.

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.

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Kicking Off a New Round of Critical Thinking Training

Today we launched a new round of our Critical Thinking Training Programme, designed to help teams make better decisions in a world of complexity, ambiguity and change.

The first session introduced core concepts that will run through the programme: from the evolution of the knowledge worker to the shifting organisational contexts in which people now operate. We explored how traditional, rational approaches to decision-making are no longer enough — and why today’s leaders need to tap into more diverse forms of insight, including systems thinking, emotional intelligence, and even intuition.

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Designing experiments in policy change – lessons from RDL Cohort 4 Session 6 hosted at Chatham House

On February 4th, our current cohort of the Regenerative Design Lab returned to Chatham House London. In this session hosted by our delivery partners, the Chatham House Sustainability Accelerator, our aim was to deepen understanding of system change, policy change and the Ambition Loop model.

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Exploring Regenerative Design with Hawkins Brown

On 30th January 2025, Oliver delivered the keynote for Hawkins Brown’s Regenerative Design Research Week, bringing together ideas on how regenerative design can reshape architectural practice.

As the final session in a week-long series of talks and workshops, this keynote helped tie together discussions on regenerative approaches in architecture. The session explored how organisations can map their activities against larger systems of change and provided practical frameworks for embedding regenerative principles into design practice.

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How to have ideas – workshop for DYSE

On 29th January 2025, we ran our ‘How to Have Ideas’ workshop with DYSE Structural Engineers in Manchester, exploring the creative process in design and how engineers can generate and test ideas effectively.

Building a Creative Toolkit

The session focused on:

  • Understanding a design brief as a flexible starting point for creativity.
  • Using our Kalideascope model to explore where ideas come from.
  • Testing and refining ideas through models and structured evaluation.
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Report Release Announcement: Exploring Policy and Regenerative Design

We are happy to announce the release of our latest report, detailing the findings from the third cohort’s six-month exploration into how policy changes can unlock regenerative design. Our report is now available for download, the findings of which offer a starting point for our next cohort investigating the intersection of policy and regenerative design.

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How to Have Ideas: Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There

Photo of Oliver Broadbent delivering the How to have ideas workshop - standing in front of a slide that says where do ideas come from

Last week, we were at the Institution of Structural Engineers delivering our ‘How to Have Ideas’ workshop to graduate engineers from Ridge Consulting.

Creative thinking is often the gap in the formal education and training of engineers. Yet, in the context of the climate emergency and a rapidly changing economy, creative thinking is crucial for developing designs that meet the needs of people and our wider ecology.

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