Word-image cycle

The ideation workshop isn't a talk shop. True, words matter but so do doing and making. And so design ideation is manifested by interaction, or dialogue between visualisation (non-verbal) and language (verbal). An example of the image-word cycle is Corbusier who, in his final interview of May 1965, explained it as follows: 'As it turned out later that, not being able to build certain things, I could draw them; but not being able to explain them entirely in drawing, especially when it came to urbanism, I had to explain them, so I wrote.' In the interaction between words and images, however, words place the image in context. Moreover, the contextualised image highlights how ideation is as much process as outcome. That is, the process of visualising and verbalising the idea towards realisation, step by step. Or, idiomatically speaking, to take the idea from "talk the talk" to "walk the talk" to "walk the walk".

Intangible concepts

Design has many aspects (charactertistics) or perspectives (contexts), both tangible (the physical object) and intangible. Time, light and darkness are examples of intangible factors investigated, articulated and manifested in the design process. Take architectural space, which, like time is a convention and cannot be grasped in a handfull and therefore intangible. Or, say transparency perception which is influenced by light reflected versus light transmitted, both intangible. Indeed an architecture experienced as a spatial phenomenon without physical measurements. And so in the ideation workshop where explorations take place, discoveries are made, and where transformations occur producing tangible forms from intangible ideas. In the same vein, Isozaki, the Japanese architect, urban designer and theorist, developed and worked on the idea of "Darkness" as an architectural prototype (1960s-), holding that architectural design is the process of giving concrete form to intangible concepts. However, it should be noted that ideas can be concrete, visual or abstract.

Activity creates ideas

The trigger for the ideation workshop is that ideation is not a passive pursuit say, simply sitting waiting for ideas to pop up. On the contrary, the workshop is an active engagement with ideation tools, that is, from words and sketching to model making and computing. The activity takes many forms, for example, improvisation, or the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Or, tinkering towards innovation, that is, the practice of experimenting, testing, probing, and making incremental improvements to existing designs and processes. And a great place for tinkering is often he studio (or the ubiquitous garden shed, or garage). And so the ideation workshop, through the activity of playing around with stuff, and asking "what if" questions creates opportunity to problem solving, indeed even problem finding.

Modelling ideas

Although the ideation workshop is, necessarily confined in space and time, ideation itself is a never stopping, never ending process: it's a flow. The flow of ideas reflects how each existence, animate and inanimate, is changing during every moment day and night. The change is like flowing water which does not ever come back and which reveals its true nature in its eternal travel. Indeed panta rei. In this sense, every idea, like every day is a good one from which we can learn something new. However, in design education as well as in practice, there is a tendency not to accept the notion that every idea is good. That is, "the Good, the Bad and the Ugly" are labels commonly attached to design ideas focusing minds on how to categorise and organise ideas in the realm of perception or thinking, or how to systematise and control ideas as sense data of the sensual world. Indeed, in the name of industry efficacy, design ideas are made to fit into the rational design process as early as possible, for example, feeding ideas, as computer files into Building Information Models (BIMs).

A sports approach to ideation

In ball-playing sports such as football, rugby or basketball there is an approach to learning known as non-linear pedagogy which advocates a more ‘hands-off’ approach to teaching and learning within physical education (PE) embracing both technical and cognititve skills.Through the manipulation of certain constraints, rather than prescriptive instruction different information is presented to the learner. In turn, the learner is challenged and channelled to find their own movement solutions to the problems they face or the goals they need to achieve. The set constraints, which relate to the performer, the environment or the task, are the boundaries in which the learners can search for those solutions. In this way, learners are encouraged to make their own discoveries. This approach works for ideation too. Indeed the ideation workshop is very much a non-linear pedagogic approach raising the awareness of ideation tools through manipulation of constraints.

Thinking aloud a tool for ideation

Speaking or saying out loud means to say what you are thinking, to verbalise aloud with your voice, as opposed to just thinking it. Although talking to ourselves out loud is sometimes frowned upon, hearing ourselves speak can help memory recall. Moreover, saying something out loud is not only a powerful cue to retrieve pre-existing ideas but can also help generate new ideas. The writer Heinrich Kleist of the Enlighenment era describes his habit of using speech as a thinking method and writes that active speech helps to turn the obscure thought into a whole idea. That is, it’s not thought that produces speech but, rather, speech is a mental process that in turn generates thought. Or, ideas come with speaking. Self-talk, then, or thinking aloud can be seen as an ideation tool. Reference: Kleist (1805). On the Gradual Production of Thoughts Whilst Speaking. Ed. and Trans. by David Constantine. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2004).

The notion of workshop

While the ideation workshop is typically studio-based, this does not mean that workshop activity, or "ideation process" is exclusively taking place in a single physical space. Ideation, like design itself, is an iterative process, and so ideators typically thrive in flexible environments, or nomadic contexts, both physically and mentally. Indeed idea generation knows no borders and can happen anywhere. Yet the physical studio provides a convenient and effective creative space for the workshop facilitating the use and practice of a range of ideation tools. The studio also functions a social space for sharing the ideation experience. A such it can take place both indoors and outdoors. Indeed, the ideation workshop is not a narrow but an expansive notion and in moving from, say semi-private to public sphere may inspire and engage cooperative or communal approaches to ideation, such as placemaking.