An Introduction to the Enquiry by Design Process

The aim of the design week was to introduce the students to the Enquiry By Design process and get them working together in collaboration, sharing their individual skills and unique knowledge to produce a complete design by the end of the week.

The Enquiry By Design process is a collaborative planning and design tool that The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment use in their projects and practice, and have even evolved it to apply to healthcare infrastructure, schools and a wide range of strategic and specific planning and design projects across the world.

The idea of the process and indeed of the design week was to create a design that met the brief given by stakeholders on the first day. The students throughout the week made three iterations of the design proposals, each time feeding back to the stakeholders and taking their comments, criticisms and suggestions on board as they revisited the designs. On the third iteration of the design it is anticipated that any issues have been elucidated and the scheme is robust enough and worked up to a standard that it can be built and delivered effectively and with consensus from all parties. The quality and high standard on the final day owes not only to the effectiveness of this process, but the hard work and dedication of each of the participants, including stakeholders and the students themselves who worked tirelessly over the five days leading up the the final presentation on the Friday afternoon.

For more information on the Enquiry by Design Process, follow this link:

http://www.princes-foundation.org/index.php?id=33