foresight, innovation and transformative thinking
This week I’ve read a couple of articles that have resonated with some of my frustrations around the challenges of ‘business as usual’ in the construction consulting sector.
First up was Alison Heritage ‘s article entitled “Heritage and Foresight – Engaging with the Future through the Past” in the Fall 2023 edition of the GCI’s newsletter Conservation Perspectives (pp4-7). This exploration of ways that foresight could be applied to envisioning how the heritage conservation sector could best serve current and future needs of society highlighted the challenges of uncertainty, and the importance of exploring how we think about the future and why. A range of tools for applying foresight and critical futurism are referenced.
And then this short piece entitled “Transformative thinking unlocks innovation “, published here by my colleague at Inhabit , Wayne Sanderson , suggests that the practice of transformative thinking is the difference between adapting to the future and creating it. Boldness, asking questions, boundary-crossing and risk-taking are key characteristics of transformative thinking … and collaboration is critical.
These two articles nicely provoke questions on how to step away from the incremental change that the construction industry sees as innovation, and instead envision a whole new way of seeing our role as construction professionals.
I’m reminded, as I write this, of first hearing Carl Elefante use the phrase “the greenest building is the one that is already built” at board meetings of the Association of Preservation Technology International during the period 2006-08. And the amazing architectural work of the French architects, Lacaton & Vassal , who instead of designing new apartment buildings, took the existing buildings and extended them to completely transform their performance as dwellings.
Now, nearly two decades on, the drive to maintain, re-use and re-envision existing buildings instead of demolishing them to be replaced by new buildings is finally becoming mainstream. Foresight? Innovation? Transformative thinking? All of the above.
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Image credit: Philippe Ruault
Lacaton & Vassal , Druot, Hutin
Transformation of 530 dwellings, block G, H, I; Quartier du Grand Parc, Bordeaux, France
Independent Mind (early retired) former partner @ DGMR. Writes in a personal capacity.
1 年Hi David, good to know this is becoming main stream with you to. With us this had been so for the last 15 years. We transform office buildings into residential buildings and churches into theaters, shops or appartements. And actually it is more fun to because the techical challenges are often bigger. We now are entering a new era with circular use of materials. Just now a manufacturer of hollow core concrete floorslabs started selling seconds hand slabs with full garantee. All driven by CO2 reduction measures of the gouvernement and the EU.