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Silo Thinking is Dead: Long Live the Silo Sunand Prasad Senior Partner, Penoyre & Prasad LLP Oxford Institute of Sustainable Development 22•10•13
Silo Thinking is Dead:
Long Live the Silo
Sunand Prasad Senior Partner, Penoyre & Prasad LLP
Oxford Institute of Sustainable Development 22•10•13
“I don't intend
to build in order
to have clients;
I intend to have
clients in order
to build”
“Construction is to architectures as
printing is to writing.”
Distinguished architect/academic ca 2001
so,
Architecture is the end; everything
else is just the means
Professional Institutions
1897
1909
1976 1868
1818
1834
1914
1929
The Divorce of Architecture and Resource
1834 Measuring: Money, short term Financial Resources
1834 Surveying: Assets, long term Financial Resources
1960s Planning: Social & urban Resources
1990s Project Management: Time Resources
201? Sustainability: Environmental Resources
A B C D E F G J K L M
Conventional plan of work: sequential design, concept to detail
design construct prepare
operate
carbon counting > need for new design process
A B C D E F G J K L M
Carbon aware Plan of Work: Simultaneous multidisciplinary design
design construct prepare
operate
carbon counting > need for new design process
A B C D E F G J K L M
More carbon aware Plan of Work: constructors part of design team
design construct prepare
operate
carbon counting > need for new design process
A B C D E F G J K L M
How up upstream and how down downstream?
des con prepare
operate
but what is a project?
challenges to
orthodox professionalism
•Working with incomplete information
•Working with contingent states as the norm
•Co-creation to harnesses best knowledge
•Everyone is an expert
•Knowledge transfer is superfast, superficially
•Ambiguous position of professions – played up by
politicians
Questions
• Are professional ethics themselves a barrier to true
multidisciplinary and co-creative work?
• Can a fixation with a holistic approach inhibit effective
action?
• What are the limits of multidisciplinarity?
• What is a project?
Information Knowledge Imagination Wisdom
how to intelligently deploy:
Small Practice
Schools
Retail
Planning
Procurement
Sustainability
Conservation
Knowledge Communities and Professional Institutions
Conservation
Small Practice
Schools
Retail
Planning
Procurement
Sustainability
Conservation
Knowledge Communities and Professional Institutions
Conservation
Small Practice
Schools
Retail
Planning
Procurement
Sustainability
Conservation
Knowledge Communities and Professional Institutions
Sustainability
Knowledge Communities and Professional Institutions
Sustainability
Knowledge Communities and Professional Institutions
In praise of silos
• The complex nature of modern knowledge fields
• Innovation needs deep understanding >
specialization as well as crossing boundaries
But
• Our knowledge only has traction when combined
with other disciplines
• Need to specialize in generalization > the need for
active synthesis of deep knowledge
Education
• Designing to embrace resource limits
• Designing as teamwork
• The development of attitude as important as skill
• Recognising that Education influences Ethics
