Try again....fail again....fail better!

Societies in Ireland are at a turning point. The fast and furious economically driven building trade of the past 20 odd years has eventually calmed down. Now we (by ‘we’ I mean people, not just architects) can now move away from building on demand and come up with new methods and motivations for building. While the building boom has meant that some people benefited financially, many people would argue that it has resulted in a regression of society and its values. Going forward we have the opportunity to slow down, look at individuals, how they work as a collective, and come up with ways that the built environment can improve the way that we live. Through the collaboration of people from various backgrounds, professions and with various ideas, we can encourage co-operation so that people within a community can flourish while also allowing the community as a whole to progress. The architect can no longer be seen as the person who dictates how people should live or inhabit a space. Instead the architect should become the coordinator or the gatherer of the ideas that are put forward or proposed by the people who know best what is needed, - the end users. Not only is there a need to change the way that we build but also the way that we, as a society, think and solve problems. Now more than ever we need new, creative thinkers George Land in his book ‘Breakpoint and Beyond’ George land concluded that non-creative behaviour is learned. He came to this conclusion from a test that he developed for NASA. The test was used to select innovative or creative engineers and scientists. In 1968 he gave the test to 1,600 5 year old and 98% of them registered at genius level. He retested the same children aged 10 and 15. At 10 years old 30% of the children registered at genius level and by 15 the number was down to 12%. The same test was given to 280,000 adults and their genius level creativity was placed at 2%! People are naturally creative we just have to give them the freedom to create. In today’s society people are pushed towards deductive and convergent way of thinking and away from divergent thought processes. This was appropriate in an industrial age, however that age has passed. We are now in an age where less and less people can fall into a career based on their qualifications. More and more companies are looking for people who can collaborate and push beyond what their job description or parchment says they can do.