Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration

From the Author: Hide & Seek Inspiration:

Visitors to the d.school frequently ask us where we find inspiration for the spaces we design. Here are a few places we look:

-- Retail Experiences

Restaurants, Hotels, & Stores
Restaurants & boutique hotel lobbies are almost unparalleled in the moods they create. Retail stores are full of display implementations that can be co-opted for display of creative work.

Specialty Hardware Retailers
Marine hardware outlets, antique hardware stores, and industrial kitchen suppliers stock all manner of novel gadgets to inspire new possibilities.

-- Public Gathering Places

Parks & Playgrounds
Endless interactions of all sorts occur in these spaces that provide insight into natural postures and the nuances of group interactions.

Airports & Parking Garages
Guiding travelers is a door-to-door experiment in designing way-finding. Parking garages in particular feature innovative uses of signage, color coding, and memory cues.

-- Places Where Things Are Made

Prep Kitchen & Food Trucks
Food prep is creative work that occurs under great time pressure. Cooks consitently invent ways to produce during the constraints of a mad dinner rush.

Sound Stages & Theaters
Sound stages are designed to support the realization of imagination. Everything about them is tuned to support the construction of novel designs.

-- Learning Environments

Museums & Galleries
Art is inspirational but so are the galleries themselves. Gallery spaces are constantly reconfigured to adapt for the needs of a show.

Pre-schools & Kindergartens
Learning environments for young kids are one of the few places where physicality is embraced -- kids love to move around. These spaces are also full of materials to engage in playful building activities.
-- Service Industries
Hospitals
Emergency rooms in particular are filled with clever solutions to coordinate action among staff and service the often complex emotional needs of patients.

Repair Shops
Bike mechanics, oil-change garages, tailors, and shoe repair shops all have unique tools & configurations for optimizing space, time, and money.