Why Being Curious Makes for Better Designs

Several topics have been occupying my mind in 2021.

• The leader of a legal firm having to step down for sending a letter to staff that challenged the status quo.
• Victoria University writing a compelling RFT about the type of people they want to work with.
• A transgender person kicked out of female toilets in a club.
• A website set up by a university academic asking for stories about the impact on females from transgender people using their toilets.
• A client asking how to design all-gender toilets and sharing our experience gained through another client.
• Impassioned discussion in our team about implementing all-gender toilets, followed by another one about designing the Memorial for Victims & Survivors of Institutional Child Sexual Abuse.
• A coffee and croissant with a client and learning about their vision for their future.

I’ve struggled to work out how they are related, and then I connected with Jacqueline Gough, Head of Curious Minds at Haileybury, and I remembered this TV show clip https://lnkd.in/gq-SQpX (language warning!).

There is rarely one correct answer to complex issues, and to move forward, you have to be open-minded. Design is like that too.

Be curious, not judgemental – Walt Whitman.

I like clients who are curious about why we do what we do. Because why we do what we do has a bearing on what we do for you and how we do it.

Peter Schreuder, Managing Director