Reflection – Mind mapping

Challenge

The architecture practice being a design field itself, we get to deal with various stakeholders like  consultants, structural engineers and so on. But the most important of them all are the clients who  give us the go signal to start any project. Now before diving in we are generally given a brief of the  needs. Our challenge becomes to understand these requirements better and produce an efficient  outcome combining with the pre acquired knowledge. Let us take an example of a family of 5  members who want to build a house with the best user experience.

Selection

Mind mapping is looking for patterns and insights in the large quantity of data you have collected  during the exploration of what is. This helps us reach the ‘what if’ phase of idea generation, a pivotal  point in the design thinking process. I have chosen this tool as architecture is not all about aesthetics  it is more user centric and focuses on the functionality of the design. This engaging and creative  cognitive method shall help build a strong relationship with the household members and dig deep  into their minds to bring out concepts.

Application

The family members are of various age groups and have different opinions and taste of how they  want to live in the house of their dreams. It is an architect’s responsibility to combine these and  produce satisfactory results. The conceptual development phase starts to unfold once the briefing is  a hundred percent clear. Each of the members will be told to record their day to day activity for  about a week. Through the mind mapping method, the common activities can be grouped together  and thus draw solutions and opportunities to design themed spaces around them.

Insight

Existing research provides answers to some questions, but such intuitive exercises can broaden the  scope and possibilities of innovative thinking. For example, from the activities drawn an open  kitchen that overviews the most active and common living area can help bring stronger social  connections between the members of the household. Thus, proving how new information might be  extracted through the mind mapping tool.

Approach

You become more confident with every project you complete because every step of the way you are  constantly bombarding yourself with experiences and knowledge that can be implemented more  positively into new ones. It is indirectly a form of learning launch. Overtime you are able to achieve  more with such cost-effective experimentations. The Visualization and storytelling tool may also be  combined to sell your design in a convincing manner through various aids of representation.

