Articles

Closing the Design Gap

THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES • SPRING 2010 • BY ELLIOT FELIX
How does the design gap come to be? How is it that our environments so often underperform, functionally and even emotionally, leaving a range of basic human needs unmet?

And why are fundamental business goals such as cost-effectiveness, communication, and innovation not better supported by our spaces? The design gap results from flaws in the design process involving the participants, their communication with one another, and the way the design problem is defined. Clients may not know or be able to express their needs. New to the design process and its terminology, they may understandably fumble through it. Their vision might be unclear; for example, they may know they need new office space but have no sense of how they want to work in the future. On the other side, architects may not be good listeners, or may be listening for the wrong things. This could be because of a preoccupation with styling, a bias toward novelty rather than refinement, or a degree of specialization that makes them unable to see the big picture. Most significantly, architects and other designers may come to view design as an end in itself as opposed to a means for fulfilling the needs of the end-users.

Click here to read full article