Foresight &
Intelligence

AI Readiness Field Notes, No. 1. Design firms are trying the tools. Very few have changed how they lead, price, staff or deliver the work. …

A diagnosis tells you where your firm stands. A change statement says what it will do about it. A practical guide for design firm leaders fa…

The co-founder of Álvarez-Díaz & Villalón on getting paid for early-stage knowledge, shrinking from 50 people to 27 while revenue rose, and …

A practical, step-by-step guide for architecture and design firm leaders to diagnose where AI strengthens and threatens their practice. …

Adapted by the Design Futures Council from articles Patrick Scannell wrote for attendees of DFC’s September 2026 Leadership Summit, and from…

A structural engineer skipped one recalculation. A year later, 114 people died. Technologist Patrick Scannell on what that has to do with ho…

Design creates enormous value. Scott Simpson, FAIA, principal at five architecture firms and CEO of two over a five-decade career, has spent…

The crowded, dilapidated buildings in the city started to disappear. Scaffolding went up overnight. Streets that had been lined with laundry…

“A good puzzle would be to cross Dublin without passing a pub.” — James Joyce, Ulysses On June 16, the streets of Dublin fill with an unusua…

We use the word significance with ease. An award is a significant achievement. A shift in the market is a significant warning. A personal de…

We live in a time of confusion. As truth is increasingly treated as subjective, the notion of a shared or universal truth has eroded. Withou…

If everything is essential, then nothing is. We use the word essential constantly. In meetings, strategies, and briefs, things are described…