Isolating The Design Process During Quarantine with Bill Bouchey
How quarantine enriches design collaboration and the built environment.
“What are the guiding principles that might come out of this that a portion of the world will adopt, even if this pandemic is cured and goes away? Because there will be someone thinking what about the next one? How will we approach the design of the built environment to be more immediately responsive to the next one? Those are the lessons learned that continue to unpack themselves every day in the pandemic that we’re in. They are adding up to guiding principles. That is the next place that I would like myself and my peers thinking to go because I think that is where leadership around the built environment is going next.”
- Bill Bouchey
Overview
We are in week 10 of a worldwide pandemic. Many Architecture and Interior Design firms around the world have normalized the working from home culture. Yet we are left wondering where our collaborative design process is heading? We find in times of change, we as a human race are turned upside down, brought out of our comfort zone and forced to recon with thoughts that were always there but were masked by the bustling of the daily race. In this episode industry leader Bill Bouchey joins Elizabeth Lockwood to muse on:
Resetting the design process during social distancing
Debunking the working from home culture
Explore what it means to "reoccupy"
Establishing new behavioral norms and developing guiding principles that enhance the built environment
Impact social distancing has on design thinking
Guest Summary
Bill Bouchey, FIIDA, ASID
30 years of design experience
Director of Design, Interiors for HOK and leads projects out of Los Angeles and New York
Recently admitted into the IIDA College of Fellows
Bill has experience as a thought leader in workplace, showroom and retail environments, with an emphasis on innovation and brand presence
His design sense is driven by the belief that interior design empowers people and transforms organizations
He serves on Contract magazine’s editorial advisory board and is a frequent contributor and guest speaker on design
IFMA Design Innovation Award for Touch Mudder Brooklyn Headquarters (nominated) and Design & Construction Awards (The Law Firm of Fitzpatrick, Cella, Scinto & Harper: Large Office Category)
Interior Design BOY Best of Year 2012 & 2013
SARA Society of American Registered Architects
Hot off the press, NYCxDESIGN has honored Bouchey and his team at HOK the 2020 Best Creative Office for Shiseido Cosmetics. Look for the project feature in the May issue of Interior Design Magazine.
Isolated Quotes From The Show
Bill Bouchey, FIIDA, ASID Director of Design, Interiors with HOK
Pro Tip: Push your self to engage with the built environment, to study it, to explore it, to question it so we don’t fall back on what has been done. This pandemic is the opportunity to rest how the built environment is approached.
Pro Tip: The power of the ideation process: Pause, reflect, rinse, repeat. Relish in it while you quarantine and treat this period as a gift.
Pro Tip: Consider using virtual reality to engage with your design teams, pick an avatar, meet in a tropical place and ideate.
Credit
Branding & Graphic Design work by Andrea Schwoebel https://www.andreaschwoebel.com/
Head shot provided by Bill Bouchey from HOK
Album Art Work Photo by Trevor Bobyk on Unsplash
Mural Photo by Martin Widenka on Unsplash
Sign Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
VR Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash
Debunking Working From Home Culture
Bill: The Shelter from home and working from home is the new disrupter. It’s the disruption that has proved out the myth, the fantasy, the declaration, or the assumption that work from home can’t work. It can work but it comes with a whole new set of complications, conditions, characteristics and aspects. Working from home takes on many different faces. This pandemic has given us a view into the physical state of being for many people that we interact with on a business partnership level. Before, we never would have had a view into one’s homes. It’s one of the epiphanies of being and doing work virtually in this pandemic.
Work is getting done. We are doing it together real time on all kinds of virtual technology platforms, exchanging files, sketches, ideas and conversations. But the human experience that comes from being with a group of people in a physical space cannot be met. Working from home works but there are a lot of things to figure out to work from home:
Available Space
Negotiation and distractions with families, partners, roommate
Technology and printing
Physical layout in your new office
Ergonomic furniture
Emotional yearning for a particular experience
Simulating those water cooler collaborative moments
Being effective with the tools and software available
Explore What It Means To "Reoccupy"
Elizabeth: We are making history. We are part of a case study that’s is going to change our home, corporate, healthcare, and hospitality environments. We are all trying to grapple with being apart of this process because there are not many of us that have lived through a pandemic and had the opportunity to transform design.
Bill: The journey forward has never been more universally true. It is going to touch every human being on the face of the earth and it has never looked less clear than any other work crisis. Policies, planning and product will all be affected and change in the built environment. Things will not be as convenient and will take on a new meaning.
As Bill and I mused about what it meant to reoccupy we established a pretty generous list of how pandemics impact the built environment:
How do we help adopt existing environments?
What policies will be in place and how do they impact the planning of new environments?
How does one prepare for future pandemics even as this one fades?
How will this affect the user experience?
Will we see arrivals prescheduled and a flow based on a six-foot spacing?
Will shopping be more customized with schedules that reduce consumers but increase service levels to a more curated environment?
Will lead times increase as capacities decrease due to social distancing?
How do you alter spaces and create visual transparencies?
Where is the line drawn between design and cleanability?
What does clean look like?
Do we need to physically see the spaces being cleaned?
Do we need to have a heightened visual sterile, decluttered experience and how does that impact our psyche?
Bill: Bottom line we will need wonderfully curated spaces that support the visual and physical functions, these will be as important as the programmatic performance qualities. I am going to say something controversial. This is not a HOK philosophy and it is not my personal philosophy. What we are really tossing around here, is every project a healthcare project? What is the filter of health and wellness that gets put on existing and new environments? What is the notion around, monolithic, easy to clean, easy to maintain areas that have no nooks and crannies? When you step back how much of that is really necessary and how much of that is best practices in order to allow people in that environment to feel emotionally safe? These are all the things that we as an industry are starting to unpack.
Resetting the Design Process
As we rest, we transition to a new norm or continue to explore new ways within our design processes. The real question is what are we going to reset and not go backwards on?
Bill: It is allowing us to be more relaxed, more personal, more intimate in a way while maintaining appropriate business boundaries. It brought out a human component to all that we do and taken the corporate edge off of communication, allowing people to feel accepted for who they are. This period has either extended personal time or business has eroded personal time. Many people have said that it is a longer work day but taking out the commute allows them to rest during the day. The pace of the day has changed, if you need some real “heads down” time it may be very easy to do at home and if a break is needed the things you love are all around to provide inspiration. It is much easier to throw down a yoga mat at home then between the cubical walls. Walks in the garden can’t happen in a conference room but some inspiration may come from your backyard. Working from home has its pro’s and con’s. How do we capitalize on the pros and minimize the con’s? Scheduling strategic or creative time in your calendar now means that time is yours and no one is interrupting that. Escaping the office to a coffee shop or a park is no longer needed because the time is yours. Time to sketch or write down some key words is now a gift of this time.
Elizabeth: It feels like there is more opportunity throughout the day to reflect without the bustle of the day and distractions. We can be more intentional about how we show up for with our peers. Communication has taken on a new prominent role in our design process. This rest while working is a mental vacation from the bustle of our lives.
Bill: The dialog I am having with other creators is about resetting. What are we going to rest and not go backwards on? We are not entering into the same mad world and the rush that we previously had. This rest philosophy is allowing us to slow down and experience life.
Managing a Behavioral Norms Shift
Elizabeth: In times of change we as a human species look for: similarities, relationships and comfort. This is pushing us all out of our comfort zone and it must be managed from a systemic level. Humans will resist change unless we have the data and tangible information to back it up. The question is, are we putting band-aids on things or are we really implementing adaptive long-term design solutions that are going to really work for the occupants of the space?
Bill: There are hundreds of people entering into a building each day. It is one thing to manage 300 occupants on a single floor but the bigger question is how are we going to get 5,000 people in and out on a daily basis. The building lobby is the compressed space that is going to feel the pain most. The arrival and departure from a lot of our environments is going to be affected by time, duration and distance..
Elizabeth: It starts from the outside of the building by giving someone a clue as to what to expect upon entry. Occupants need the proper mental transition so they can prepare for how to engage with the environment. We must take into account how the built environment can communicate proper messaging even before one enters into a building. The very notion of threshold, transition will be re-imagined to convey new social behaviors. The built environment is a larger piece of the system at play. Policy, DNA make-up, physical, and psychological health are all pieces of the larger puzzle we are talking about. There are many different factors systemically that play into how ones body responds to the built environment and we are designing for a portion of human health that effects human behavior.
How design thinking is impacted by social distancing
Elizabeth: Traditionally we are trained to engage with the built environment, to look at others work as precedents to inform and strengthen our design resolve. I wonder how the creative design process is impacted under quarantine? Collaboration is an important element of the design process. The physical vibrancy that is felt by being in a room with peers is unmatched over a video call.
Bill: That is the chemistry that working virtually cannot quite recreate. I think technology allows people to collaborate virtually but there is not the same intimacy. Brainstorming is slightly compromised by technology but it is also enabled by it. Especially if the experience is shared and both participants can see each other. However, technology needs a facilitator to help the design process. Technology by itself will not help collaboration and needs someone or a mechanism to push the process forward while steering the group towards multiple outcomes instead of one.
Elizabeth: That is the key to facilitation. A facilitator leads the group along. The key to facilitating is having faith in the design process. The hardest part of the design process is the physical portion. That is the Paradox of Group Life. One must balance the task and process while facilitating. We as a society tend to jump into the task and loose sight of the design process.
Developing guiding principles that enhance the built environment
Bill: It is time to start unpacking the gifts we are given. There is an opportunity for all of us who are creators to be futurists. To be bold while being thoughtful and mindful. A Reoccupied world can be equally if not more beautiful. What are the guiding principles that might come out of this that a portion of the world will adopt, even if this pandemic is cured and goes away? Because there will be someone thinking, what about the next one? How will we approach the design of the built environment to be more immediately responsive to the next one? Those are the lessons learned that continue to unpack themselves every day in the pandemic that we’re in. They are adding up to guiding principles. That is the next place that I would like myself and my peers thinking to go because I think that is where leadership around the built environment is going next.
If you would like to muse more on how social distancing effects the design process HOK has developed a series of wonderful articles COVID 19 Design for Change.
Till next time keep designing y’all.