Affordable homes and fat wallets
Last week I attended a talk by David Morton at Northumbria University. The renowned architect and designer, who is now lecturing in the North East, was presenting on all things creative.
Chief designer of IKEA’s ‘flat-pack homes,’ or BoKlok, Morton uses creativity and ingenuity to compose solutions to the problems presented to him. In this instance, it was how to make housing simpler and modular as well as quickly and easily produce it on a mass scale. I suppose, very IKEA you’d say, but there’s a great reason behind it — to make a home a reality for as many people as possible.
Morton went through various concepts and philosophies that are close to my heart. For one, exploring the problem before the solution, which meant in order for Morton to create cost-effective homes, he knew he had to identify what made building homes expensive in the first place.
Out of this, Morton served up a gift of a line:
“Materials cost but form is free.”
Using his mantra, Morton explained how he identified that the utilities of a home (plumbing, electricity, gas, etc.) are all very intricate with entry points across a home making things complicated. By creating a central column — one entry point — these utilities could flow in one vertical or horizontal plane, reducing materials by changing form.
At the end of the talk we joined together in small groups for a workshop. The leader of the Northumbria University Entrepreneurs group wrote the problem on the board:
FAT WALLET.
With two other groups, one made-up of design students and the other of business students, I expected that between us we’d have some very different ideas. In essence, what happened was that the two groups tried to re-design the wallet — this was not the solution I came up with.
To start with, the problem was a FAT WALLET, so we looked at what causes a fat wallet. You could have too much:
1. Cash money (lucky you!)
2. Credit/Loyalty Cards
3. Coins
Now, really, cash is becoming increasingly optional. I mean, if your wallet’s bulging with notes then you’re probably not complaining about it. You can use your credit or debit card for just about anything too. But even cards are no longer needed if you have a smart-phone, with the likes of Apple Pay (well done guys for branding a service available on all other phones). I mean, even loyalty cards are easier to have as an app…
That left coins.
Coins are what I can’t fix. They are what make your wallet FAT. So then I thought, well do we need them? Let’s say I buy a £5.40 burrito and pay with a £20 note. I don’t want £4.60 change in coins (the £2, £1, 50p, 20p, 10p 5p 2p and 1p coins are something, I know, already baffles some of my American friends). So why can’t I scan my phone and have that part of my change added to my Apple Pay? The solution tool is already there. I’m not creating a new product or app — it’s simply a feature waiting to happen.
Apple can have that one for free on us:
We closed with the question: “What was the most important part of creating a solution?” Unsurprisingly, it was pointing out the problem — not just the overarching problem (FAT WALLET) but the more specific problem, coins. Because it’s only then that the solution will present itself.
This is the Inventors Paradox and a key element people struggle with, trying to solve a problem, instead of the cause of a problem.
