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ULI UK: Young Leaders Innovators & Disrupters Series: The Art of Storytelling in Architecture
The Innovators and Disrupters is a new series run by ULI UK Young Leaders, which will allow members to meet with people who are radically shaking up the world of bricks and mortar with their iconoclast thinking.
Held in exclusive locations, this series aims to give voice to speakers outside of the “usual suspects”, encouraging discussions with the next generation of innovators and fostering creative debates amongst real estate professionals.
People have used narrative as a way to make sense of and navigate the complex world around them since the beginning of civilisation.Creation, myths and religions all seek to make sense of an infinitely complex universe by telling stories that we can understand and act on. Even the ‘big bang theory’, for most people, is essentially a created narrative that distils the complex science and makes it accessible to everyone.
Architects should be very good at telling stories and selling their ideas. A typical architecture education in the UK is 7 years and in that time it is normal not to actually build anything. All you can do is conjure up an impression of a building with words and imagery. You then use these words and images to convince people that your building would be good if it was built, or at least that your ideas are interesting.
The architecture Crit at university is the architects training ground for presenting ideas. Where the student must convince their teachers and colleagues that they are made of the right stuff. But sometimes good ideas get dismissed because they were not presented well and vice versa, a rubbish idea could be celebrated because it was made to look pretty. The same is even truer in the real world. A project that has taken a team months to develop might get dismissed on a whim by someone who only has a few minutes to absorb the facts and make a decision. The only way to take control of a situation like this is in really crafting the presentation. The problem with college Crits is that everyone in the room is either a fellow Architecture student or a tutor, and they are all at the same university, studying and teaching the same things. So we can become highly trained at convincing our colleagues but not so good at talking to everyone else. Too much alienating shop talk and not enough plain talk.
For architecture to be successful as a profession, it has to engage the broadest possible audience. Join Nick Taylor, Company Director of creative agency, Squint/Opera, to debate the nuances in crafting powerful presentations and developing the right narrative.
Nick Taylor, Company Director, Squint/Opera
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