In unprecedented times of challenge, architecture must question and redefine its priorities, to connect with nature and serve people and places, argue Anna Liu and Mike Tonkin in an exclusive extract from their new book
Architecture should not just be about architecture. It should be about much more than itself, questioning and searching beyond itself to redefine the priorities in our time.
We are living through a time of unprecedented, ever-changing social and environmental challenges, potentially stifling creativity through the practice of minimising risk. Challenging times call for a greater level of invention and responsiveness, a form of practice that addresses the evolving needs of our time.
Four sequential, responsive steps
In our book, Asking, Looking, Playing, Making (ALPM), we describe Tonkin Liu’s design process. This offers four organised, sequential and responsive steps that disassemble complex problems into multiple specifics, nurturing lateral design solutions. For more than two decades, this nature-focused process has been developed through teaching and practice, and Mike’s practice-led PhD, and has been used in all the studio’s projects from design competitions to built work.
Storytelling is the design tool
Stories touch hearts and minds: a powerful tool to unite people. The four stages, ALPM, use the storytelling tools of riddle, quest, archetype, script and entity. Each stage expands through the subject matters of nature, people, and place, and through the time perspectives of past, present, future. Given that these factors are different from project to project, the logical consequence of using the process is that every project emerges as a unique and original story. The story’s autonomous vehicle promotes collaboration that expands beyond the sphere of architecture, evaluating findings and crafting solutions that resonate with each project’s context.
Nature focus
The design approach considers our position concerning nature from a broader perspective. Reset the geography in a biodiverse, impactful future of which the project is a connected and active part. Respect, harness, conserve, frame and delight in nature’s elements such as sunlight, rainfall and wind, which have functional and experiential roles in architecture. Seek, uncover and share symbols in nature that are most resonant with each project. Identify a principle from nature to guide the project towards an advanced, nature-based design.
Asking
Asking dismantles the project brief and builds a word cloud that reassembles it into a riddle that reveals clues, contradictions and provocations. Involving first-principles questioning, it is done collectively in workshops with clients, stakeholders and key collaborators. In the architectural profession, this stage vastly expands the project’s potential and the longevity of the client’s brief, and aligns with RIBA Stages 0 and 1.
Looking
Looking visualises the riddles, builds a wall of inspiration and results in quests to reveal influences, intention and new ways of seeing. It involves research and visual references. Done collectively with specialists, looking amasses their mindsets, knowledge and imagination. In the architectural profession, this stage shapes the project’s architectural intent and aligns with RIBA Stages 1 and 2.
Playing
Playing translates the quests into three-dimensional forms, culminating in the creation of an archetype. Models, sketches and diagrams explore fundamental spatial arrangements through design alternatives. Form-finding, towards typologies that respond to the project’s pragmatics and poetics, results in an architectural archetype, a universally recognised symbol, an identity and a story. Models, sketches and diagrams explore fundamental spatial arrangements through design alternatives. In the architectural profession, this stage aligns with RIBA Stages 2 and 3.
Making
Making translates the archetype into a script that generates a family of parts to deliver a seamless, holistic entity. This phase involves detailing, fabrication and prototyping, where technical design is guided by the story towards materials, techniques and construction systems. Making is undertaken with people who cherish craft to bring the story to life in an integrated entity. In the architectural profession, this stage aligns with RIBA Stages 4 and 5.
Stories, myths and symbols
Stories have symbols. Architecture creates symbols. Both stories and architecture communicate shared values, meanings, ideas and social structures. ALPM searches for archetypes that convey unique yet universal, readily accessible symbols. Built symbols encompass local characteristics, connecting people with nature and with other people. Symbols change preconceptions and trigger new possibilities, reimagining present circumstances for a new future. Through its emotional impact and shared imagination, a built project can help to build social unity – and a strong sense of place.
De-siloing mindsets
Just as the professionals within the industry – including architects, engineers, specialists and contractors – are siloed within their expert knowledge, so are many within the natural sciences: geology, biology, physics and chemistry. We all need to de-silo our mindsets in order to bring about the much-needed cultural shift. This can be done through our imagination and through thinking in different timescales. The ALPM process questions and reimagines nature and culture’s overlapping system through the time perspectives of past, present and future. Nature forms a constant guide to embedding long-term and holistic thinking into the creation of architecture.
We need to de-silo our mindsets… through our imagination and through thinking in different timescales
Innovation
The shaping of our future requires a collective commitment to lateral as well as forward thinking. ALPM is an approach among many that strives for architectural innovation through enabling a nature-focused evolution. A systematic questioning of each project – what it is, what it does, how it works, how it is made – ALPM guides pragmatism in light of the project’s story, which brings poetry to problem-solving. Architectural excellence is redefined through responsive, holistic and long-term design thinking, encouraging projects to be unique, culturally resonant and rooted in nature. Nature is a driver; the story is the vehicle; the design process is a guide; and innovation in placemaking is the aim.
This article is in part excerpted from Asking, Looking, Playing, Making by Anna Liu and Mike Tonkin of Tonkin Liu, RIBA Publishing, £28, 144pp.
Join Anna Lui and Mike Tonkin on 11 June 2025 for a webinar exploring how to question and redefine briefs (asking), seek inspiration and uncover design quests (looking), develop and test archetypal forms (playing), and craft cohesive design systems (making).