Tag: design process
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Old Hobby, New Panic: What the pottery wheel reminded me about designing
Fifteen years is long enough for a skill to either disappear completely or lie in wait like a smug little party trick. This weekend (31 January 2026), I walked into a pottery studio for the first time since 2011 and sat down at the wheel with the exact confidence of someone about to take an…
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McGonigle McGrath design process
As part of a tour around design studios in Belfast’s Portview Trade Centre, we visited the award-winning Architecture studio, McGonigle McGrath. Kieran McGonigle explained to us how they work, what principles they follow and what a typical design process entails for them. Kieran highlighted two aspects, in particular, sketching and model making, that inform their…
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Diagrams and design – soft thoughts.
Here is a diagram taken from a recent article in Journal of Cleaner Production which will be familiar with some readers. Are such diagrams useful in designing? Ehsan N et al 2017 Boundary matters: the potential of system dynamics to support sustainability? Journal of Cleaner Production, 140(1) 312-323 I am not talking about sketches of…
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The actual and the future: on co-evolution
We love to ponder about the nature of designing, design behaviours, processes and practices. What is it we do and how do we do it? Eventually, we want to improve how designing is taught and learned. In a meeting, Theo quickly visualised his understanding of design activity, moving from actual and possibly flawed states to…