David Morley's FIVE by 5

Last evening David Morley www.davidmorleyarchitects.co.uk gave a stimulating presentation of 5 projects in the WORK Gallery www.workgallery.co.uk in Kings Cross as the third in a series of 5 that will lead to a book to be published by Artifice (Black Dog www.blackdogonline.com ) later this year.  With each talk David is refining the 5 stage diagram of his working method which starts with 'tuning in' to the client's needs.  Their buildings tend to have 5 or 5 pairs of bays, vaults, rooftop shells etc but they are all logically analysed, developed and detailed.

What intrigued me though was the way he described using the DQI for post-occupancy evaluation and more recently soft landings as though this was quite normal.  When challenged by Kate Trant to ask the first question, I said how delighted I was to hear a top architect using these tools properly to improve their practice and not as another pointless tick-box exercise, as too many others do.

After the talk over a glass of rose, in recognition of the first hot day of summer, I told David about how the DQI www.dqi.org.ukemerged as a result of my being challenged by the (Egan) Movement for Inovation Board to find a way of measuring design quality; and how Soft Landings www.bsria.co.uk/services/design/soft-landings emerged at Cambridge University when we and a number of other practices supported its development by Mark Way under David Adamson in response to our Maths Building and RMJM's Microsoft Building.