Once upon a time, there was a boy; he was young and quite a lot shorter than most kids, but he was clever, kind and had lots of friends.
One day a parade came to town and all the people ran to the main road to watch. The boy ran there too, but when he got to the road, he realised he was stuck behind all the taller people and could not see a thing.
So, the boy called his friends and asked them for help; one brought a large basket, another a long rope and the third took them all to his house which had a walled garden with a tall tree right by the main road.
Together they tied one side of the rope to the basket, and the other side they flung across one of the tree’s strong branches. The little boy climbed into the basket, his friends pulled the rope together, and the basket went up the tree. The boy could watch the parade over the fence whilst sitting comfortably in the basket. Later, the friends took turns in the basket, so they all enjoyed watching the parade.
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There are many forms of collaboration all around us; between countries, between companies and of course between individuals. We also know that there are wonderful examples of collaboration in nature too, between animals and even plants.
A construction project is a great example of collaboration; the client wants to build something, but they do not know how, so they contact an architect. The architect designs the shell of the building and in doing so contacts various specialists to collaborate on different aspects of the design, for example; structural engineers, mechanical and electrical engineers etc. The client also wants to design the interiors, so they contact an interior designer. The interior designer considers each space in terms of the walls, the floors and the ceilings as well as the furniture. As part of their design, they contact a lighting designer to design the lighting scheme. The lighting designer will consider the building’s exterior shell and interiors, the furniture, the mood etc and will contact various lighting manufacturers to understand more about their light fittings and what would best suit the project.
All these professionals, and more, are referred to as the design team, and once they have agreed on the design for the building, they contact the construction team.
The main contractor, even if a large and capable company, will contact various sub-contractors to offer specialist building knowledge in various trades that may be required to make the design a reality.
A building site is another excellent example of collaboration: lots of people from different places gathering and bringing their different skills in order to realise the design put together by the designers, who in turn crystallised the vision and dreams of the client. One could not work without the other and even if they could, the result would not be half as good as it is through the contact and collaboration of all these people.
At Light House Designs, we place great value on collaboration; internally we enjoy sharing ideas, suggestions, thoughts and experiences. Externally we value our collaboration with our many partners – designers, architects, engineers, installers, manufacturers and of course our clients. You can see some of them on Our Collaborators’ page on the website. We learn and grow from all these interactions to become better designers and better collaborators.