When designers flourish, the possibilities are endless. Rest assured, the change we facilitate will endure.
How can our Contemplative Design Technology help designers and organizations flourish in Design’s Next Chapter?
We teach novel methods to enhance designers’ resilience, empathy, self-knowledge, purpose as part of their design process that are critical to counter mental health and burnout challenges.
We illuminate powerful insights and practical applications from cutting-edge research in neuroaesthetics, science of human flourishing, pyschology and contemplative practice that are going to be critical for Design’s Next Chapter.
We empower design teams with tools for conscious collaboration that breaks patterns of implicit bias and conditioned thinking to enable socially inclusive projects and equity and diversity in the workplace.
We arm designers with new skills to access resources of intuition, empathic imagination, felt senses and wisdom, essential to design built environments of human flourishing.
Unlocking possibilities. Our diverse offerings meet your organization’s needs
Whether you prefer short sessions, immersive workshops or customized programs, our transformative learning journeys blend interactive experiential design practices, reflective group breakouts and practical tools for immediate application to your projects. Rest assured, the change we facilitate will endure.
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Focus on the Four: Introduction to Contemplative Design Technology
Succint yet comprehensive workshop introducing cutting-edge research in allied fields of design and engagement with practical contemplative design tools to transform design challenges into resources. 60 -90 minutes
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Foundational Four: Deep-dives into Contemplative Design Technology
Workshops each focused on one of our Contemplative Design technology to drive transformative and sustainable change in design process, culture and project outcomes within your organization. 90 minutes each
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Customized 1:1/group Contemplative Design Technology
Custom-designed for you, your organization and your projects to give leaders and the next generation of change makers the tools to cultivate sapient Eco-design leadership for Design’s Next Chapter.
“ Contemplative Designer’s technique is new and refreshing, exactly what firms need right now.
The workshops are courageous and forward-thinking sessions that welcome vulnerability and connection in the design community. They allowed us to ask hard questions together, and to receive and give advice. I was impressed by Sarika’s ability to pivot each session to fit the group’s needs.
After each workshop, I felt reconnected with passion and focus and armed with powerful tools.”
Lucca Townsend, AIA, Associate Architect, Sasaki Associates, Boston
The exceptional benefits of our unique methods
In addition to the survey results here, designers also reported that our methods helped them forge deeper connections with their colleagues, embrace authenticity and vulnerability, and find greater meaning in their projects through contemplative design practice.
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I am confident in my ability to be creative on demand.
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I am able to fruitfully engage with difficult clients and colleagues.
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I have clarity of vision of the future designer I want to become.
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My design life is aligned with my intentions for the built world.
“Focus on the Four”: Introduction to Contemplative Design Technology
Re-defining designing from inside-out
Cutting-edge research synergized with practical tools
In this 60 minute interactive and experiential keynote your designers will explore how recent research from the intersection of the science of human flourishing, neuroaesthetics, contemplative practice and psychology are critical for their ability to design “spaces of flourishing” for Design’s Next Chapter.
They will train in four fun, evidence-based, design tools from our framework to transform their design challenges into resources for their design practice.
01 Regain creative agency and resilience
By building your personal “inner sanctuary for creativity” so that autopilot reactive responses to design challenges can be transformed into resources for creativity for the design process.
02 Foster empathy and conscious collaboration
Through engaging in the “first contact method of listening” in Wonder and Empathy Circles with teammates to bring “new eyes and ears” to a design challenge.
03 Deepen self-knowledge
By discovering how the “design momentum equation” can serve as a supercharged engine to put their larger intention for the built environment into action over the course of long, complex projects.
04 Embody Design Intention
through enacting how built environments of flourishing can be brought into being by bringing through the process of “iterating and becoming an instrument of design” in the present moment.
“Contemplative Designer’s pursuit is timely in the context of a world where an increasing number are speaking out against social injustice.
Through the framework and unique methods we might begin to see a more humane built environment that reminds us of our moral obligations to one another.”
Earl Jackson, AIA, Principal, Earl Jackson Architecture Workshop & Associate Adjunct Professor, Columbia University
“Foundational Four” Workshops: Deep dive into our Contemplative Design Technology.
Workshops each focused on one of our “flourishing skills” to drive transformative and sustainable change in design process, culture and project outcomes within your organization. 90 minutes each
01 Creating Space for Creativity: Building Resilience
CHALLENGES
Your leaders, designers and teams are…feeling the pressure to be creative on demand.
Feeling burned out, stressed and anxious.
Feeling distracted, tight, stuck and loss of agency.
TAKEAWAYS
Build creative agency by building your inner sanctuary for creativity to transform auto-pilot reactions to design challenges into resources for creativity.
Direct the trajectory of your design process with authentic confidence through controlling your momentary design minds.
SELECT TOOLS & PRACTICES
Build your personal resilient “awareness buffer”: Creative Visualization, drawing, journaling
Heighten multi-sensory awareness as your design superpower
Master design meta-awareness
02 Expanding Perspectives: Enabling Conscious Collaboration
CHALLENGES
Your designers and teams… long for authentic connection with teammates, clients and end-users and a cohesive culture.
Fear judgment, fierce competition and isolation.
You want more diverse and inclusive perspectives in your projects and teams.
TAKEAWAYS
Foster conscious collaboration with clients, colleagues, and the design process by deploying the first contact method of listening where wonder and empathy break habits of conditioned thinking and implicit bias.
Engender socially and ecologically conscious projects through viewing every project participant with new expanded perspectives of wisdom and compassion.
SELECT TOOLS & PRACTICES
Practice deep listening with a beginner’s mind in every interaction with clients and colleagues.
Expand compassion to Nature by identifying your “sustainability superpower”.
Give and take in “Wonder and Empathy Circles” to bring collective wisdom to a design challenge.
03 Embracing Form follows Intention: Supercharging Momentum
CHALLENGES
Your designers and leaders…know what they do and how they do it but not their design “why”.
Core values are misaligned with your organization’s mission and culture leading to stalled momentum.
Lack a clear vision of the impact they want to make on the built environment during your career.
TAKEAWAYS
Deepen self-knowledge through designing an embodied mental and emotional blueprint of your future designer self, aligned with your design values and your organization’s mission as the northstar to staying on course.
Deploy the design momentum equation to ensure that your highest intentions for the built environment is put into constant action over the course of long complex projects.
SELECT TOOLS & PRACTICES
Conduct reflective self-inquiry into your core design values to crystallize design intention.
Meet your “future designer self” in a future project and design as your mental and emotional blueprint.
Supercharge momentum by taking on the role of a variable of the design momentum equation.
04 Becoming an Instrument of Design : Embodying the Future Now
CHALLENGES
Your designers, leaders and teams… lack meaning and purpose in their daily design practice and low engagement.
Your teams are not aligned with your larger values and mission. You have higher turnover rates.
Limited bandwidth is hindering adopting cutting-edge insights from allied fields of design.
TAKEAWAYS
Embody self-transcendent design intention by bringing your future potential as Eco-designers to create “spaces of flourishing” into the present through iterating and becoming an Instrument of Design.
Explore how insights from neuroaesthetics on the shared universal human psychological and neurological responses to built environments can help dissolve artificial boundaries of siloed design thinking.
SELECT TOOLS & PRACTICES
Design with understanding of the neurobiological universality of human experience of spaces.
Design in the persona of an Eco-designer who sees the web of interdependence amongst all design participants.
Realize the “Future is Now” and iterate as an intentional instrument of design to bring the emerging future of “spaces of flourishing” into the now.
Authentically transforming our built environment one designer’s mind at a time.