Collaborative Designing.

In most architectural offices the bosses' sketches are holy. The design process follows one simple rule: The brilliant sketch. Employees do the fine adjustments and the civil engineering. If everything works well, primary sketch and building fit together. Does this method lead to innovative design?

Lately, I came across IDEO. The company has a simple claim: IDEO helps organizations innovate through design. In collaboration with AMO, the counterpart to OMA's architectural practice, IDEO has done the main technology elements of the interactive dressing rooms and the wireless handheld staff devices of Prada Epicenter stores. Perhaps IDEO has inspired Rem Koolhaas to found AMO, the "think-tank" that operates in different areas than architecture.

Staff Devices and Dressing Rooms for Prada, by IDEO / AMO

In contrast to many architectural offices innovation at IDEO is grounded in a collaborative methodology. It's unimaginable that the design is just provided by a single person. The primary design 'tools' of IDEO are observation, brainstorming, prototyping and implementation:

1. Observation:
How do people interact with world? Architecturally spoken it's the analytic phase.

2. Brainstorming:
"The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas" (Linus Pauling)

Accompanied by some simple rules: "Be Visual. Defer judgment. Encourage Wild Ideas. Build on the Ideas of Others. Go for Quantity. One Conversation at a Time. Stay Focused on the Topic."

3. Prototyping:
It's problem-solving in three dimensions. Architecturally spoken, use your foam cutter.

4. Implementation:
The engineering and manufacturing stuff.

Some architects are still far from these innovation strategies. They see themselves as successor of lonely geniuses like Filippo Brunelleschi, Étienne-Louis Boullée or Le Corbusier - ignoring that the business has changed.