It’s time now to enlarge the scale of the drawings. (I do this on a photo-copier.) Many spaces will now be clearly the wrong size and need revising. Usually small spaces are too big, but oddments like cupboards and storage aren’t yet there, so things more or less balance out. Doors, windows, vertical dimensions in relation to eye-level and human scale, and changes of ground level become issues to consider at this scale.
We’re now ready to make a rough card model. This shows internal spaces, also how the building will be structured and constructed. Rough, so we feel no inhibitions about cutting bits off, and taping, pinning or sticking other bits on. Without this freedom, it wouldn’t be a design tool, but a presentation model. Presentation mod- els fix things our design isn’t yet ready to fix. I use cardboard boxes cut with kitchen scissors.
I’ve done a few projects with the whole group right through this stage, but few groups can spare so much time. More commonly I’m left to do this on my own. If (as is ideal) we’re working near the site, users can drop in frequently. In one project, I had an (unofficial) rota of co-designers, so I was always making, and revising, the model with one or other (or several) users. Each person helping, and each review session, brings up new issues, for only now can we really see things spatially. So there’s lots of cutting bits off and sticking bits on.
From this card-model, we can draw more definitive, but still freehand, plans, sec- tions, elevations, and many, many sketches. I particularly sketch problem areas and awkward junctions. The successful bits, I’m not worried about. Yet again, we need
to imagine walking through, living, using and being in the building and the places around it. Again we must check the overall floor area as a cost check.
We now have the building agreed, indeed designed, by all, very substantially as it will finally be. This is as far as I’ve ever gone with user-group design, though, during construction, I’ve also developed buildings with the people working on them.
Some issues feel abstract when decided on paper. How, for instance, should this ceil- ing meet this wall? How awakening or soothing should this window shape be? Towards what should this lowermost step face? To make soul-moving decisions, you need to
experience these. By tacking up scraps of plaster-board, or holding up batons for each
other to view, you can really see how things might be. Such on-site design involvement gives an experiential basis to discussions and the reasons behind our decisions.1
There’s much more architectural work still to do, mostly about construction, per- formance, regulations and cost. Some may force design changes, which the group should then review, but it’s rare this involves anything very significant. Never, in my experience, have these changes been major.
Unavoidably, because people can’t spare the time, there’s always quite a lot of work for professionals on their own. I also do this. In the process, I also keep find- ing minor things I can (in my opinion) improve. Nonetheless, the basic form and space, appearance and user-experience have been decided by consensual group process. What we end up with may not be exactly what the group decided early on, but it’s around 90% the same. More whenever the user-group can give more time. Had everyone the time, 100% would be no problem.
Although – as with all design – lots of time goes into adjustments and fine-tuning, this main design stage is a fast – and exhilarating – process. Not surprising, as we’re all pulling in the same direction. How different from the architect proposing, the client criticizing and eventually everybody compromising.
86 Consensus Design: How?
Though the whole group of teachers (and doctor) designed this special-needs school up to clay model stage, this wasn’t possible for the card model. Instead, individual teachers came whenever they had free periods. Consequently the fine-tuning cutting-off and sticking-on moved back and forth until we had something everybody was happy with.
Design development
Where What we do Output
Recapitulate ‘growth into the future’ process
(With consultants, if appropriate) Organizing diagrams identify organizing issues develop
organizing diagrams
On site Brief ‘key journey’ process (as in Chapter 9)
Confirm plan gestures and peg Record plan diagrams these out
Confirm approach – and (probably) entrance Indoors Lay out paper ‘rooms’
Draw rough plan (remembering Very rough plan gesture and approach)
On site Check this on site Indoors ‘Walk-through’ plan
Check floor area re: cost
Sectional implications of the Section diagrams organizing diagrams
Lay out clay ‘rooms’ (on tracing plan)
Model clay Rough clay model
Form implications of materials
Draw revised plan and sections Rough plan and sections On site Check this on site
Indoors ‘Walk-through’ plan Check floor area re: cost
Check micro-climate Improved clay model
Draw revised plan and sections More refined plan and sections Enlarge drawings
Tighten-up dimensions On site Check this on site Indoors ‘Walk-through’ plan
Check floor area re: cost Revise plans and sections
Appearance implications of materials
Draw elevations Initial scheme design drawings Make and revise card model to Rough card model
determine internal spaces, construction and structure, environmental performance etc.
Revise drawings Confirmed scheme design drawings Neaten-up card model Presentation model and drawings
for communication to others How in practice: consensual building design 87
Note
1 More about on-site-design by the workforce in: Day C. (1990). Building
with Heart, Green Books.
88 Consensus Design: How?
Incarnating building form.
Lay paper ‘rooms’ over plan gesture (already found, see Chapter 9)
Rough plan Clay rectanguloid ‘rooms’ on rough
plan Model clay to building form
Revised plan (and sections)
Assess (and revise) clay model for sun, wind, view and noise