As part of my role as creative director for this years RIBA Guerrilla Tactics conference I have been working with the RIBA and illustrator asako-masunouchi on designing the branding for the conference. The theme is Reinventing Practice and we are going to be looking at ways that Architecture might evolve in the coming years – positively responding to some of the various challenges we find ourselves in. One of the 5 days of talks is on the subject of Office Systems and Data.
In the logo we wanted to get across several ideas:
- That while architects often present themselves in a very controlled and ordered way – often behind the scenes there is a much more creative, dynamic and messy process
- Running a successful practice requires the bringing together of many disparate parts
- That people both design the the processes of a business and in turn become a part of those processes
As a society we design systems and processes that try to abstract the messy world in which we live into something predictable and ordered – something that perhaps protects against human error or bias, something solid and factual. However, as the 2020 A-level exam debacle has so clearly demonstrated, humans are always still at the center of these systems – both constructing and consuming their consequences.
In the logo we wanted to get across the message that whether dealing with office systems, data, company structures or new automated construction systems, humans should be considered an inextricable part of the process. If we can design these systems with this in mind then maybe there is a brighter future ahead.
