“Designing for VUCA” is the introduction to the latest issue of SOUR’s Journal, which touches on issues such as Preparation & Response for Natural Disasters, creating A Place of Community Belonging, exploring The Value of Agile Response, and many more issues around ethical design.
This issue of the Journal also covers their design for the Geomdan Museum Library Cultural Complex in Incheon, South Korea, which we have previously covered here:
Climate-Resiliant Archeological and Cultural Complex
SOUR is a global design studio with the mission to address SOcial and URban problems. You can read more about SOUR on their website sour.studio, and find the Journal Issue 06 under the publications tab on their website or through this link. To give you a piece of the cake, you can read the introduction of this Journal below.
Designing for VUCA
We are creatures of habit. We enjoy morning rituals, prefer certain brands, and have specific songs to uplift and particular meals to comfort us.
While we may enjoy “changing up things” once in a while, we often experience them in control and with circumstances defined by us. Trying out new cuisine, changing careers on a whim, going out with people who are normally not our go-to…these are regulated changes that we voluntarily facilitate and for which we are prepared to have outcomes that may be disappointing or difficult. And even in such a context, we applaud ourselves for our bravery in encountering the unfamiliar.
This isn’t a right or wrong thing we do, it is simply our nature. Our brains are wired to deem the familiar as safe, and therefore preferable.
This is where our very own nature starts to become our challenge. We are experiencing an increasing tension between our innate nature and the world we live in today. Even though the sun is still up every day and the earth continues to rotate, many systems – natural or human-made – are spiraling out of our control.
The complex systems in place are generating systemic outcomes that are also complex, resulting in wicked problems and further unknowns. Most of the time we don’t know what we don’t know, and while we are busy speculating, we get ambushed by a reality that appears obvious once it presents itself.
Let’s take air pollution as an example.
We pollute the atmosphere on a daily basis, sometimes consciously (cars) and sometimes unconsciously (food we consume), but always by choice. We, humans, are in control of the primary pollutants that are emitted into the atmosphere. However, we have no control over what happens in the atmosphere.
Studies during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that ozone levels have increased in the atmosphere despite a significant reduction of the primary pollutants during the lockdowns. Why? Secondary pollutants. The pollutants that are formed in the atmosphere as a result of the interaction of the primary pollutants. Our emissions not only pollute on their own but also lay a foundation for further pollution.
This shows us that the prescriptive practices we are discussing to reduce emissions fall short of a solution for this evolving problem at scale.
In complex systems, our actions have monumental ripple effects beyond our comprehension.
A fixed solution or a “best practice” will inevitably underperform in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous – VUCA – environment. There are no panaceas for the ever-changing problems of the VUCA world, there are only methods of interventions, tools for rapid prototyping, and experiments that are safe to fail. There is no “solving” but “addressing” problems through emergent actions. There is no strategy planning without a collection of strategic tactics.
It isn’t about a billion-dollar innovation that would cure it all, it is about millions of innovative processes which we need to co-create with diverse expertise.
This journal is dedicated to concepts, prototypes, and actions within and for the built environment, with an understanding of the VUCA context.