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Showing posts from November, 2018

The Design Business

This very interesting piece of research - "The business value of design" ( link ) by Benedict Sheppard, Hugo Sarrazin, Garen Kouyoumjian, and Fabricio Dore, published by McKinsey Design - talks about how design affects a company's bottom line. What I found interesting while reading it was that I have seen a lot of organisations whose core business is design yet they do not understand it entirely. They make the same mistakes or lack the same commitment towards a design led approach to their own business as mentioned in the article. Design organisations get tied down by the lack of design in their own internal processes and business outlook, all the while trying to sell a “design product” to a client, claiming how it will improve their life or business. This is one of the main reasons why most designers live a chaotic and disoriented life, taking pride in their utter inability to streamline even the basics. This attitude is sold to the world as the romantic

Architects and Partners

Will the profession of architecture in India benefit if the Architect's Act allows the formation of Pvt Ltd companies where all directors are registered architects? Will this allow for a better sense of ownership and career progression opportunities to employee architects who dream of opening an independent practice purely because growth opportunities are severely restricted in the partnership structure? Will this allow for consolidation and better project delivery instead of the need to open a multitude of tiny independent firms and the resultant exploitation of the firms, and their employees?

Educated People

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“He/she looks like an educated person. How can he/she do that?” This is a phrase that I hear often, from a variety of people, in response to a variety of stupid or uncivil behaviour that people exhibit in everyday life. It is almost always delivered with an expression of disbelief.  Quite honestly, I have never understood this strange correlation (in people’s mind) between being “educated” and the expectation of better behaviour from other human beings. It seems that for whatever reason, people believe that education is supposed to instil better sense and behaviour. It is supposed to make one a better human being. How? By attending Moral Science classes in school? It is my firm belief that our education system is deeply entrenched in an industrial process of converting human beings into employable zombies who will obey orders. The standard recipe of study hard, good grades, good college, good job, etc. is designed to make us subservient and obedient. The sole aim of the desig