8 Essential Skills for 21st Century Designers
This essay is a summary of the book “The Multi-Skilled Designer: Cognitive Foundation for Inclusive Architectural Thinking.” Using the theory of multiple intelligences from cognitive psychology, and developments in psychometric research, the book advocates eight skills to incorporate skill diversity in design. Design problems of 21st Century vary far too greatly—in terms of their content, scale, and complexity, and demand a repertoire of skills. To consider multiple skillsets is to recognize the presence of individual differences, representations, and approaches in design. This allows a shift from formalist practices of architecture that emphasize graphical and formal logic skills, that tend to produce the same type of designers and privilege a narrow section of designer thinkers.
Chris Cornelius' design process demonstrates the use of naturalistic skills. The “Skywoman” creation sketch is an inspiration for Oneida cultural heritage site intertwining cosmological stories in the project. As a member of the Oneida nation, Cornelius feels story-telling process helps him make tangible the implicit centrality of nature in all its manifest forms. © Chris Cornelius
This essay is a summary of the book “The Multi-Skilled Designer: Cognitive Foundation for Inclusive Architectural Thinking.” Using the theory of multiple intelligences from cognitive psychology, and developments in psychometric research, the book advocates eight skills to incorporate skill diversity in design. Design problems of 21st Century vary far too greatly—in terms of their content, scale, and complexity, and demand a repertoire of skills. To consider multiple skillsets is to recognize the presence of individual differences, representations, and approaches in design. This allows a shift from formalist practices of architecture that emphasize graphical and formal logic skills, that tend to produce the same type of designers and privilege a narrow section of designer thinkers.
