Empathy as a Design Tool
Using empathy as a design tool is a powerful way to create buildings with purpose. It is the way to design custom homes that are dream homes. It is the way to design businesses that a community loves. Using empathy is how we design differently from others.
Empathetic design means understanding the users’ dreams, hopes, habits, and way of life. In other words, it means putting yourself and your experiences into their shoes to respond to their needs, wants, hopes, and dreams. Empathy will help designers set aside their own assumptions in order to understand the client’s motivations and experiences. It helps you figure out the needs of the client so we can provide solutions that are meaningful and go beyond surface textures and beyond just new construction.
Using empathy in design gives power to place, provides equality, comfort, joy, and gives mutual respect to earth and user. This approach to design leads to innovation that neither client nor architect could have produced solo. It preserves heritage and celebrates history and empowers humanity to be better.
