Studio LK develops, manages and delivers design proposals and strategies for sustainable development, through a collaborative design process called Enquiry by Design.
This process brings together key and wider stakeholders and interested parties, to work together collaboratively to discuss, and then produce, an agreed vision and development proposal for a new or existing place, building or community of any scale.
The process begins from the early stages, and even prior to the formal commencement, of a project, with Studio LK facilitating and mediating key discussions and negotiations regarding the project’s nature, its framework and structure, its politics, the stakeholders and interested parties, planning policy compliancy and navigation, key constraints and viability, and brief requirements.
Studio LK leads and facilitates these initial meetings, which are usually followed by a scoping workshop attended by the key project stakeholders, in which they identify the key issues, and agree key project parameters, constraints and opportunities.
The scoping workshop is usually followed by a full design workshop led by Studio LK, in which the project vision and design proposal are developed by the key and wider stakeholders and interested parties. This includes Studio LK facilitating and mediating key local issues with, for example, community groups, officers and other key stakeholders as well as teaching of the principles behind sustainable design and development.
Every issue that is discussed in the workshop is tested through drawing. In these sessions, Studio LK’s technical experts are used in disciplines that may range from architecture to landscape and transport, to work alongside local experts including for example historians, business owners and wider neighbours, as well as planning officers and participants from statutory bodies.
The participants share their respective expertise and, in the process of learning from one another, inform the design. The result is stakeholder buy-in and ownership of the project at an early stage of the process.
Each collaborative design workshop is tailored to suit local needs and the nature of the project, no matter how big or small. Studio LK believes that effective and continuous stakeholder engagement and co-design in the planning process leads to greater empowerment and leadership for all with an interest in the project, being essential elements of success and sustainability.
It also reduces or eliminates litigious costs typically incurred during the planning process by developers and financers, and evolves a design that delivers short, medium and long term financial gains.
We use a Sustainable Communities Framework and Enquiry by Design process for the majority of our projects. This approach results in more sustainable design outputs and minimises time and money typically lost through bureaucracy and costly legislative procedures through the planning process.
